330 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION 



lections of land plants, land spiders, insects, and marine coastal 

 animals were obtained. 



The collection of plants has been examined by Dr. O. Stapf 

 of Kew Herbarium, and found to contain some thirteen species 

 which have not hitherto been recorded from the island. South 

 Trinidad is a small volcanic island lying about 500 miles from 

 the coast of Brazil, whence it has derived its scanty fauna and 

 flora by means of such agents as winds, ocean currents, and 

 birds. On the voyage home we actually saw one of these agen- 

 cies at work. When the ship was rather more than a hundred 

 miles from the Brazilian coast, to the southward of Trinidad, a 

 large number of moths, belonging to about four species, were 

 blown on board by a S.W. wind. 



An up-to-date account of the fauna and flora of this island 

 will be included in the Reports. 



NEW ZEALAND 



When the Terra Nova was engaged upon her three months' 

 surveying in the neighbourhood of the Three Kings Islands, off 

 the extreme north of New Zealand, some 80 samples of plankton 

 and 32 samples of sea-water were obtained. 



'Seven successful trawls in depths varying from 15 to 300 

 fathoms yielded a good collection of benthos from this area. 



During the first winter the ship's biologist spent five weeks 

 at Mr. Cook's whaling station near the Bay of Islands in the 

 north of New Zealand; and in the second winter, through the 

 kindness of Mr. L. S. Hasle, four months were spent on two 

 Norwegian floating factories which were exploiting the same 

 waters. Three species of whalebone whales were examined and 

 found to be identical with the three northern species Balanop- 

 tera Sibbaldi, the Blue Whale; B. borealis, Rudolphi's Rorqual; 

 and Megaptera longimana, the Humpback Whale. About 30 

 specimens of the last species were examined. An embryo 2 l / 2 

 inches in length was obtained from a female humpback whale 

 which weighed about 60 tons. 



While at the Bay of Islands an opportunity was taken of 

 examining the inheritance of the pigment in several families of 

 Maori-European half castes. Sufficient data were collected to 



