OCEANIC MAMMALS 521 



and from the colder waters in summer and the warmer seas in 

 winter. The discovery, early in the present century, of the 

 abundance of fin whales in the Antarctic seas, especially in the 

 region of South Georgia and in Ross Sea, resulted in centering 

 the pursuit to southern waters beginning about 1905. The 

 seas about South Africa, from Walvis Bay on the southwest 

 coast around to Natal on the southeast, as well as the coast of 

 Chile, likewise proved to be prolific "grounds." The catch of 

 blue whales in these areas often exceeded that of the finbacks. 

 Many have been taken also on the Lower California coast in 

 recent years. In the statistics given by Harmer (1928) for 

 various stations in the North Atlantic, the catch of blue 

 whales appears in late years as a very small percentage of 

 that for finbacks and humpbacks or other species. One may 

 infer, therefore, that in this part of the ocean the numbers are 

 much depleted, and probably at best did not compare with the 

 abundance in the southern oceans. 



The statistics published by Dr. Remington Kellogg (1931) 

 for Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, and California, for 

 the years 1919 to 1929, show that the blue whales taken were 

 on the whole about half as many as finbacks and somewhat less 

 than a fourth as many as the total of humpbacks. From 1925 

 to 1929, however, the figures were greatly increased by the 

 taking of large numbers off Lower California, from 150 to 239 

 yearly, while the numbers for Alaskan stations ranged in the 

 11 years from only 16 to as high as 81, and in British Columbia 

 usually considerably less. The numbers of blue whales fre- 

 quenting the relatively shallow seas about Lower California 

 were commented upon by Captain Scammon (1874) many 

 years ago, and he recounts attempts to capture them by shoot- 

 ing bomb lances into them, but evidently the degree of success 

 was slight, and the whale was usually lost even if hit. Dr. 

 Kellogg's figures show a total of 1,994 blue whales taken on 

 the west coast of North America between 1919 and 1929. 



About 1906 the pursuit of the blue and other whales in the 

 Antarctic commenced in earnest with the arrival of an expedi- 

 tion under Captain Christensen at the Falklands in December, 

 1905, and his subsequent departure for the South Shetlands in 

 the following January. His total catch included 24 blue 

 whales. In subsequent years the seas about South Georgia, 

 the South Shetlands, and South Orkneys were the principal 



