2 EDWARD A. WILSON. 



the Southern ice. And lastly, Mr. Bruce and Dr. Donald, who accompanied the 

 ' Dundee Whalers' in 1892, have only to report its total absence. 



There has always been much discussion upon the report made by Sir James Ross 

 in 1840, that "Right Whales" were exceedingly abundant in the waters of Ross 

 Sea. But although his report has been fully tested, and much criticism applied to it by 

 various explorers, and although whaling captains have hunted the area in question 

 unsuccessfully, it would nevertheless be wrong to dismiss the report as having been 

 founded upon error, when we consider that it was made by persons who had had more 

 practical opportunities of becoming familiar with the Right Whale than have the 

 majority of naturalists of the present day. 



By the " Right Whale " in his report, Sir James Ross certainly meant the 

 Balsena dustralis, a whale which runs as a rule in pairs or singly, and is upw-ards of 

 50 to 70 feet in length. Its spout is doulile, one jet passing to each side upwards 

 and forwards, but neither as high as the spout of the Rorqual. It is said to frequent 

 the seas of the South, where it can find discoloured water of shallow depth. There it 

 has been hunted almost to extermination by a method, the employment of which afibrds 

 a very sufficient explanation, as it seems to me, of its disappearance. One has but 

 to refer to any account of the South Sea Right Whale fishing industry to learn how 

 first an active look-out was kept upon the bays where this whale was wont to come 

 to calve, and how, secondly, the hunt began with the destruction of the calf, not 

 because it was of value in itself, but because it was known that the mother would 

 then become an easy prey, as she would not leave the bay without her suckling. 

 This is, perhaps, the most complete and rapid method of exterminating an animal 

 that has ever been adopted, and in the case of the Southern Right Whale it seems to 

 have been only too successful. 



In the library of the Royal Geographical Society is to be found a short manuscript 

 note by " Whaleljone," one of those, I believe, who accompanied the ' Dundee Whalers,' 

 and in it are given a series of rough sketches which indicate methods of identifying 

 the various whales of the Antarctic seas at a distance. In this note it is evident that 

 " Whalebone " was convinced that Ross had mistaken a Rorqual, or a Finner 

 Whale for a Right Whale, and his conclusions appear to be based upon an observation, 

 which we were able to confirm, namely, that the Rorqual shows its fin only some 

 few seconds after finishing its blow. This is a point to wdiich I shall again refer 

 below. The Right Whale, in this manuscript by " Whalebone," is depicted, as usual, 

 with no fin at all, with a double " spout," and a note to the eflect that it blows 

 at regular intervals. Sir James Ross may, of course, have been mistaken, but he 

 based his report apparently less on his own experience than on that of some of his crew 

 who had been engaged in whaling cruises, and as this particular whale was at one time 

 abundant in the Southern oceans, breeding freely ofi" the coasts of South Africa, New 

 Zealand, and Australia, there would seem to be no prima facie reason to doubt that at 

 certain seasons of the year it made its way to the Southern ice, as the similar Northern 



