EARLY RECORDS AND RECENT LITERATURE 43 



attention to the major importance of the ecological role of the krill in this southern field, the earliest 

 to be opened up by the modern whalers. He remarks in his field notes on its abundance in these 

 island waters, where, he writes, it was eaten not only by whales but by many birds and fishes, caUing 

 particular attention to the local abundance of the large krill-eating Nototheniid, Notothenia rossii, 

 which already at that early date (see also p. 131) was being salted down in barrels and finding a ready 

 market in Buenos Aires. Hansen (1908) gives the first descriptions, with excellent figures, of what 

 are in fact the first four Furcilia stages, referring to them as larvae of Euphausia superba Dana, 

 stages A, B, C and D. Tattersall (1908) shows that the E. antarctica of Sars (1885) and the E. glacialis 

 and E. australis of Hodgson (1902) are invalid, all three in fact being developmental phases, larval, 

 adolescent or adult, of E. superba} Risting (1912), referring to the feeding of the southern humpback, 

 records the following passage in which the opening sentence foreshadows something of what has since 

 been learnt of the distribution and movements of these southern shrimps. 



With the approach of the Antarctic spring great quantities of whalefood ' sprout ' up along the south polar ice-edge, 

 and this food is carried by the currents towards the coasts of the great south polar island groups. From November 

 and onwards nature has consequently spread a rich table to which the plankton-eating whales can proceed and find 

 food in all luxuriance. In greatest numbers the humpback puts in an appearance.^ It is at this season lean, but later, 

 as the southern summer advances, and it can feed without stint on its natural food — kril — it becomes rapidly fatter 

 and fatter, and from February to April it acquires a layer of blubber so thick that one can very seldom find the like 

 on the northern whaling grounds (Translation by M. A. C. Hinton, 1925). 



Liouville (191 3) refers to the Euphausia that provide the principal diet of the blue whales frequenting 

 the South Shetlands and Bellingshausen Sea, 'le seul fond alimentaire pour Cetaces offert par le 

 plancton de surface ', adding that other rorquals in these waters, fin and humpback, almost certainly 

 are also euphausian feeders. Zimmer (1913), working on rather poorly preserved material, gives the 

 first general account of the anatomy and discusses the function of the various structures. Raab (191 5), 

 working with Meganyctiphanes norvegica and Euphausia krohnii, extends the researches of Zimmer, 

 caUing attention to certain anatomical and histological differences, as well as similarities, that exist 

 between the Antarctic krill and these northern forms. Clark (1919), in his account of the biological 

 work of the ' Endurance ' expedition, notes the heavy toll of krill that was taken by Gentoo penguins 

 on Elephant Island from April to August 191 6, concluding it must be plentiful in certain, if not all, 

 parts of the circumpolar sea throughout the southern winter. The stomachs of the fin, blue and hump- 

 back whales he examined at South Georgia all contained ' Euphausiae, with a mixture of Amphipods '. 

 Hinton (1925) records that the fin, blue and humpback whales examined by Major G. E. H. Barrett- 

 Hamilton at South Georgia in the season 1913-14 were feeding on 'kril'. Mackintosh and Wheeler 

 (1929) refer to its enormous abundance in this locality and are the first definitely to show that for all 

 practical purposes it provides the exclusive diet of the great southern Balaenopterids, the blue and 

 fin whales. Rustad (1930), basing his conclusions largely on the aggregate findings of earlier expedi- 

 tions, states that, together with Thysanoessa macrura, it is evidently the most abundant and widely 

 distributed of the southern euphausians, and publishes a map, also based largely on these findmgs, 

 which clearly shows its distribution is circumpolar. He calls attention to its importance as the food of 

 whales, seals and birds, adding that further study of its life-history and 'habits' would be of great 

 practical value to the whaling industry. Two large, rather damaged, specimens of a First Calyptopis, 

 he mentions briefly but does not figure, might possibly, as Rustad suggests, be referred to Euphausia 

 superba. Marshall (1930) reports on the stomach contents of a large number of whales taken in the 

 northern part of the Ross Sea in 1928-9, finding that in every instance where it was fresh enough to be 



1 Steuer (1910, 1911) refers to Hodgson's E. australis as Eucopia {Euphausia) australis. 



2 The great abundance of humpbacks to which Risting refers may not be altogether real since it was this small species 

 (Hinton, 1925; Bennett, 1931) that was the principal quarry of the small and under-powered whale-catchers of his time. 



