I. MAMMALIA. 



By EDWARD A. WILSON, M.B. 



CETACEA. 



(1 Plate.) 



ALTHOUGH there are no land mammals of any kind at present known to exist in the 

 Antarctic, there is an amphibious and marine mammalian fauna in the ice-covered 

 waters of the region, comprising an unexpected number of species, both of Seals and 

 Whales. 



In the case of the Whales it would be hard to say how many different species are 

 to be assigned to the Ross Sea alone. But so far as our own observations go, we can 

 differentiate, though we cannot as yet name, at least six or seven that are distinct from 

 one another. 



BAL^NA AUSTRALIA 



* 



The Southern Right Whale. 



Balcena australis, Desmoulins, Diet. Class. d'Hist. Nat., ii. (1822), p. 161 ; Flower, List Cetacea B. M., 

 (1885), p. 2 ; Hutton and Drummond, Animals of New Zealand (1904), p. 42. 



It seems more than doubtful whether this whale has ever frequented the ice- 

 covered seas of the Antarctic area, but if it has, it is now quite certain that it has 

 either changed its summer haunts from the Ross Sea, where Sir James Ross reported 

 its existence in the forties of the last century, or has become so reduced in numbers 

 as to be practically on the verge of extinction. Many whalers have journeyed in search 

 of this whale to those very seas, and the remarks which are quoted below form the only 

 evidence of its existence there at the present time. 



Captain Larsen, in an account of the voyage of the ' Jason,' has given some of his 

 experiences, but beyond saying : " We have had a boat out .... in the hope of finding 

 Rethvalen," and " the mate saw three more spouts, and he could only ascertain that 

 one was from a Rethval .... but did not see the whale again," he gives no other 

 indication of its existence. He was at the time in about 67 S. lat., 61 W. long. 

 Mr. Bull during his cruise in the 'Antarctic ' (1894-5) saw no sign of a Right Whale 

 farther south than the Campbell Islands, though many, he says, were seen in that 

 neighbourhood during May and June, and " plenty" were killed much farther north at 

 the Kermadec Islands during the preceding winter months. On June 29th, off the 

 Campbell Islands, they were seen in pairs and in large schools, but few were seen after 

 this date, and none at the Auckland Islands, where the ship next went. Captain Jensen 

 (1898-1900) too has killed the whale off the Campbell Islands, but has not seen one in 



VOL. II. JJ 



