WHALE HUNTING WITH GUN AND CAMERA 



sight of which made me breathe hard with excitement, 

 for one of two things must happen either I was to 

 find that here was an entirely new species, or else was 

 to rediscover one which had been lost to science for 

 thirty years. Either prospect was alluring enough 

 and as the vessel slowly swung in toward the wharf 

 and a pair of great flukes, the like of which I had 

 never seen before, waved in front of me, I realized 

 that here at last was what I had come half around the 

 world to see. 



When the winch began slowly to lift the huge black 

 body out of the water, a very short examination told 

 me that the koku knjira really was the long-lost gray 

 whale and not a species new to science. But it was not 

 the gray whale of Scammon's description, for this 

 white-circled, gray-washed body was very little like 

 the figure he had published in his book, "The Marine 

 Mammalia." 



Many new things were learned during the succeed- 

 ing months of studying this strange animal, but chief 

 among them were the facts that the gray whale differs 

 so strongly from all others that it must be placed in a 

 family of its own; also that it is the most primitive 

 of all existing large cetaceans and is virtually a living 

 fossil. 



