42 DISCOVERY REPORTS 



quoted by Racovitza (1903), records its shoaling habit, the sea 'eine schmutzig braune Farbe', in 

 the west Graham Land channels in 1873, Racovitza commenting that the discoloration logged by 

 Dallman was evidently produced partly by the swarming krill and partly by ' les prairies de Diatomees ' 

 on which the congregating Euphausia fed. Sars (1885) refers to the capture by H.M.S. 'Challenger' 

 of 'numerous specimens' of larval and early post-larval E. superba,^ the largest of the latter only 

 17 mm. long, not far from the Antarctic mainland near 80° E, in February 1874. 'They were', he 

 says, 'as usual, taken in the townet, at the surface of the sea'. This record is of much historical interest 

 since it is the earliest reference to the remarkably slow growth-rate we have since found (p. 355, 

 Fig. 107) is peculiar to the krill in the highest latitudes of its geographical range. In the same high 

 latitudes, it is interesting to record, Vanhoffen (1903) reports equally backward euphausians, 'wenige 

 der kleinen E. antarctica' , near Gaussberg in February 1902. Burn Murdoch (1894), who visited the 

 east side of Joinville Island in the ' Balaena ' in 1 892-3 , refers to the stones and red shrimps found inside 

 the penguins, and the penguins, red shrimps and stones found inside the seals, W. S. Bruce (1894), 

 naturalist in the same vessel, noting the enormous numbers of ' finner whales ' that frequented these 

 waters and the Euphausia that swarmed on the surface. Bull (1896) refers to its teeming abundance 

 near the Balleny Islands and on the outskirts of the Ross Sea, stating that it appeared to sustain all 

 higher animal life, baleen whales, seals and penguins, in these latitudes, and that in the ice, when 

 disturbed by the passage of a vessel it would 'scatter for shelter in millions, reminding one of the 

 animation in a disturbed ant-heap'. Cook (1900) refers to the 'full meal of shrimps' obtained by 

 Adelie penguins from narrow leads in the solid pack far south in the Bellingshausen Sea, Racovitza 

 (1900 a) to the 'immense bancs' of krill that were encountered there and to the overriding importance 

 of the role they must play in the economy of Antarctic life. Elsewhere (Racovitza, 1903) he refers 

 again to its great abundance in this region, notes the heavy toll of it exacted by penguins and Crab- 

 eater seals and states that it appeared to be the food of the humpback whale. He calls attention too, 

 in some notes quoted by Hansen (1908), to its great activity, predominantly surface habitat and, as 

 Wilton (1908) repeatedly records, preference for the cracks and open spaces between the ice-floes 

 rather than the poorly illuminated depths below them. These notes contain a further reference to its 

 phytoplankton diet. 



To sum up, the value of these early observations lies principally in their repeated emphasis on the 

 surface habitat of this species and its tendency to occur in shoals, in their repeated emphasis on its 

 abundance and in that in aggregate they reveal its distribution to be circumpolar. Above all, since 

 these early sightings, without exception, manifestly could not have been made in the dark, they reveal 

 that these animals at times are massed conspicuously at the surface during the daylight hours, a 

 phenomenon suggesting strongly that in so far as their vertical movements are concerned the krill 

 do not always behave with the same regularity as some other euphausians are said to do. 



Since the beginning of this century a great deal of work has been published on the Antarctic krill, 

 and although I have to refer to much of it more fully later a summary of the principal findings is 

 appended here.^ 



Lonnberg (1906), referring to the diet of the blue, fin, right and humpback whales examined by 

 Mr Erik Sorling at South Georgia in 1904-5, observes that 'the food consists of "kril", that is 

 Euphausiids ', the humpback, according to Sorling, feeding exclusively on these animals. Sorling, 

 then assistant taxidermist in the Natural History Museum in Stockholm, is thus the first to call serious 



* Originally described by Sars as E. antarctica but since shown (Holt and Tattersall, 1906; Coutiere, 1906; Tattersall, 

 1908) to be larval and early adolescent forms of E. superba. 



^ The many references to E. superba that appear in Antarctic ornithology are not included here. For such as I have seen 

 the reader is referred to the ecological part which begins on p. 1 26. 



