228 DISCOVERY REPORTS 



those from other regions now appearing as separate papers), and the result is a series of 

 very valuable and informative documents. 



Much of our knowledge of the stock of whales is based on the assumption that the 

 catches recorded in these statistics are to a certain extent representative samples of the 

 stock of whales. They are not of course wholly representative, since there is naturally 

 some discrimination in the taking of whales of different species and different sizes, and 

 in the intensity of fishing in different areas ; but valid conclusions can be drawn as to 

 the broad features of the distribution of different species, and of certain seasonal and 

 annual changes in the local composition of the stock ; and comparisons can be made 

 between the whale populations of different localities. It is, however, necessary to use 

 a good deal of caution. For example, changes from month to month in the catches of 

 a factory ship may be due to movement to another part of the whaling grounds as well 

 as to real changes in the population. Some of the inferences to be drawn must therefore 

 be tentative. Some allowance must also be made for the fact that records such as the 

 length of each whale and particulars of foetuses are made by men whose attention is 

 first claimed by the work of the factory and who cannot be expected to make records 

 with such consistent accuracy as an independent observer. Ottestad, for instance (1938, 

 p. 51), has shown that there is a strong tendency to record measurements in round 

 numbers, so that a length-frequency curve shows pronounced peaks at 70, 75, 80, 

 85 ft., etc. At the same time there is every reason to believe that in general these records 

 are made conscientiously, and that the vast body of data that accrues from them may be 

 regarded as sound for statistical purposes, though too much reliance should not be put 

 on the particulars of individual whales. The occurrence of occasional clerical errors 

 cannot altogether be ruled out in the records of the independent observer also, who 

 works with soiled notebooks in the difficult conditions of the flensing platform. 



SOUTHERN WHALING CENTRES 



A concise account of the development of modern whaling is given by Risting in 

 the second issue of the International Whaling Statistics (193 1). Whaling with the 

 harpoon gun began in European waters in 1868 and spread from the Norwegian coasts 

 to Iceland, the Faroe Islands, the Shetlands and Hebrides, Spitzbergen, Newfoundland, 

 and eventually to northern Pacific waters. Modern whaling in the southern hemisphere 

 began in 1904 when the Cia Argentina de Pesca established their station at South 

 Georgia. In the following season whaling was begun at the South Shetland Islands, and 

 within a few years operations had started in the South Orkneys, Falkland Islands, 

 Natal, Cape Province, Walvis Bay, Angola, Congo, Portuguese East Africa, Brazil, 

 Chile, Australia, and Kerguelen Island. At these centres whaling was carried on with 

 land stations or moored factory ships, but about 1923 the first experiments were made 

 with cruising factory ships ; successful whaling expeditions were made to the Ross Sea, 

 and these were rapdily followed by the enormous expansion of pelagic whaling, as a 

 result of which more whales are taken in the open seas of the Antarctic than in all other 

 regions combined. 



