40 DISCOVERY REPORTS 



supreme in this southern field, and later, when the final answer to Dr Bullock's massive challenge 

 has been found, feature large, perhaps very large, in the ecological budget for the oceans as a whole. 



In a work such as this there must inevitably be imperfections. The hypothesis, for instance, that 

 the Antarctic bottom water is playing an important part in the distribution of the early larval stages 

 (pp. 205-8) may to many seem untenable. It is at least, however, a possibility and, in common with 

 other interpretations of our data, such as for instance my views on vertical migration, perhaps equally 

 debatable, points a broad path along which future exploration may travel. As Petersen (1915) said on 

 publishing the first hypothetical maps of the bottom fauna of the North Atlantic, ' I venture to make 

 this attempt, well knowing how imperfect it must be, because it will have to be made sooner or later, 

 and the sooner it is made, the sooner, I trust, will it be repeated to better eff^ect '. 



It sometimes happens, although not very often, that one whose business is cast among certain 

 animals, who is familiar with them yet does not profess to study them closely, can express in a few 

 simple words much of what we have to say later in our scientific publications after years of patient 

 research. The simple lines I have quoted from John Gravill for instance, an Arctic whaleman, cover 

 broadly it will be seen, and with a remarkable economy of English, much of what appears in this and 

 many other papers on whales and whaling, and could well be used, just as they are, as an end-piece 

 to this report or in the long summary that goes with it. 



ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 



To the widely scattered members of the former Discovery Committee's staff, both sailors and scientists, 

 whose sustained eifort in field and laboratory led to the enormous accumulation of material and data 

 upon which this report is based, the following pages are dedicated in grateful acknowledgement and 

 appreciation of their seamanship, comradeship and devotion in the Antarctic seas. 



I am greatly indebted to Professor Sir Alister Hardy, F.R.S., and Dr G. E. R. Deacon, C.B.E., 

 F.R.S., F.R.S.E., for reading through the long manuscript and giving a great deal of help and much 

 valuable advice. From an early stage too I have had many helpful discussions with Dr N. A. 

 Mackintosh, C.B.E., who, with the late Dr Kemp, was largely responsible for planning the voyages 

 of our vessels and ensuring the necessary spatial and seasonal coverage of the circumpolar sea that has 

 contributed so much to the results we have obtained. 



I have to thank also Mr A. Style for the artistry and clarity he has brought to the final execution of 

 my text-figures and Mr E. C. Mansell who completed so competently the long task Mr Style began. 



EARLY RECORDS AND RECENT LITERATURE 



Although it remained unnamed until Dana's original descriptions of 1850 and 1852 it is clear that 

 Euphaiisia superba was known to many of the eighteenth and nineteenth century voyagers, explorers, 

 sealers and whalers, who provided our earliest knowledge of the existence and extent of the southern 

 continent and discovered so many of its off-lying islands and island groups. It may have been seen by 

 Cook (1777) in February 1775^ and, although practically nothing has come down from them in the 

 literature, must certainly have been well known to the South Shetland sealers (Allen, 1899; Bruce, 

 1920; Gould, 1 941) from about the end of 1819 onwards. It may well in fact have been familiar at a 

 still earlier date to the fur and elephant sealers who (Murphy, 1948) first began to visit South Georgia 

 shortly after its rediscovery by Cook in 1775 and who as Matthews (1931) relates used occasionally to 



1 The discoloured, 'uncommonly white', water sighted then from the 'Resolution', near Candlemas Island in the South 

 Sandwich group, a phenomenon that so alarmed the officer of the watch that thinking it to be shoal water, he tacked the ship 

 instantly, could well it seems (p. 1 50) have been caused by a swarm of E. superba. Cook himself suggests it was probably due 

 to a shoal of fish. 



