176 DISCOVERY REPORTS 



in their present stage because a description of the Coastal Current which took no 

 account of its marine hfe would leave much of significance unrelated to the oceanography 

 of the region as a whole. 



Place names on the west coast such as Ballenas Island, Lobos de Tierra, Guailape 

 Island, and Pescadores Island evince the prominence of whales, seals, birds and fish in 

 the coastal waters: but Invertebrata were also to be seen, and at night squids were 

 frequently attracted to the surface by the ship's lights. The great majority of the larger 

 animals, like the patches of coloured water, were restricted in their distribution and were 

 met only within the coastal zone, but squids were as far out as 1 50 miles from the coast 

 (Plate XV). 



Among the smaller Cetacea, three or four kinds of dolphin were seen. In the Magellan 

 Straits, Cephalorhynchus commersoni attracted attention partly because of its conspicuous 

 white body outlined by black pigment on nose, fin, flippers and tail flukes, and partly 

 because of the quickness with which it takes breath. Farther up the coast we saw por- 

 poises swimming at a saunter in the calm waters of Coquimbo Harbour, and schools of 

 dolphin in the open sea. At the time of our visit a whaling company was at work off^ 

 Corral and oflF the island of Huafo in southern Chile, where Humpback, Sei, Fin, Blue 

 and Sperm whales may be taken ; but to-day they are met with in decreasing numbers 

 and the whaling stations are closing. Of the toothed whales we met six Sperm between 

 the latitudes of 12 and 26° S, and one or more schools of blackfish (Globicephaliis) off 

 Peru. Of the Whalebone whales. Rorquals were little less restricted than Sperm whales : 

 five were met in the land-locked Patagonian Channels and a round dozen off the Lobos 

 Islands ; in this region, having the appearance of an eddy, plankton was rich (see p. 220). 

 Anchovy {Engraidis ringens) also were presumed to be plentiful since, in the presence 

 of these whales and of bonito breaking surface, flocks of birds at rest upon the water 

 looked as though they had been feeding. 



Seals and birds, as they have terrestrial haunts, were not included in our regular 

 observations, but a visitor travelling northwards cannot fail to be impressed by their 

 steadily increasing numbers at every port of call from Southern Chile to the Lobos 

 Islands ; by the sight of pelicans in flight and by his first introduction to guanays in 

 close-packed flocks that look like black rafts upon the water. We first met them, in 

 their tens of thousands, at Antofagasta; and behind them pelicans moved slowly, 

 seeming secure, until the scuttling of guanays indicated the approach of danger (Plate 

 XV, fig. 2). For the habits of these, the piquero {^Siila variegata), the camanay 

 {S. nebouxi) and the many other species nesting on these coasts, the reader is referred 

 to The Bird Islands of Peru (Murphy, 1925): see also Plate XV, figs, i to 3. 



The distribution of sharks is worth noting because they are examples among verte- 

 brates of the influence of temperature upon the distribution of marine organisms. 

 A genus believed to have been the hammer-headed shark was in large numbers oflF 

 Capo Blanco in the hot tongue of the Equatorial Counter-current (p. 158) but nowhere 

 else off Peru. Other genera (not identified) were frequent off Chile between latitudes 

 18 and 36° S, but were not seen farther to the north. The hammer-headed shark, like 



