Aquatic Mammals 229 



extinction as has, as a matter of fact, 

 happened in the North. The fishery still 

 requires from those who follow it qualities 

 of great daring, but the latest modern 

 developments have threatened its sur- 

 vival. It could hold its own in the 

 neighbourhood of the ice floes when the 

 fishermen entered the seas in sailing 

 ships, armed with such a primitive 

 weapon as the hand-propelled harpoon, 

 and on sighting a whale rode after it in 

 small boats. The steamboats and the 

 harpoon, fired from a gun, bearing in 

 its head a time fuse that explodes like 

 a bomb, are too great a handicap 

 for the animal. Once the stock of 

 whales has been depleted, their recovery 

 will probably never be effected. There 

 is consequently a grave risk that an 

 important source of wealth is being 

 destroyed. In the South whale food 

 appeared to consist almost exclusively 

 of a single species of crustacean 



