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Some Observations on Antarctic Cetacea : Scottish National Antarctic 

 Expedition. By William S. Bruce, LL.D., F.R.S.E. (With Two Plates and 

 One Text-figure.) 



(Handed in October 21, 1914. Issued separately March 31, 1915. ) 



The study of the Cetacea forms one of the most interesting and most difficult 

 problems for zoologists, and at the same time one of the most important from the 

 industrial standpoint. 



The main difficulty encountered is the costliness of the investigation, both on 

 account of the size of the animals, the difficulty of following out their migrations, 

 and the great commercial value of the products of the carcase : the financial 

 resources of zoologists have so far proved entirely inadequate to meet the amount 

 of money required to make whalers devote sufficient time towards assisting them 

 in these important researches. Because, while attending to the requirements 

 of zoologists in handling the animals for anatomical investigation, they would be 

 losing the chance of catching many other whales each of great commercial value. 



Even an institution like the Natural History Museum (British Museum), though 

 receiving a large annual Government grant, has never been able to offer sufficient money 

 to Dundee whalers for the skeleton of a Greenland whale, and is in consequence without 

 an example of it, in spite of the enormous number that have been killed, ever since 

 the foundation of the Museum, by Scottish and other whalers. The offer of 100 for 

 the skeleton of Balsena mysticetus, when the whalebone in its mouth alone was 

 worth 2700, only produced a smile on the faces of those hardy Arctic skippers and 

 owners. Even now, with much reduced prices, which have for the time killed the 

 Dundee whaling trade on account of severe competition by Norwegian methods,* a 

 sum many times greater than that would not induce any owner, skipper, or crew to 

 consider the proposal. 



The new Norwegian methods, t however, of fishing whales other than the Green- 

 land or Bowhead whale in almost all seas outside the limits of, but close up to, the 

 compact pack ice of Arctic and Antarctic seas, which entails hauling the carcases of 

 the whales up on landing slips ashore or alongside large tank ships anchored in a 

 sheltered harbour, have enabled closer investigation to be made during recent 

 years by trained naturalists ; and in view of the fact that detailed investigations 

 of these southern whales has thus been more possible during the last few years, 

 and that a special effort has recently been made in this direction by the despatch to 



* " The Whale Fisheries of the Falkland Islands and Dependencies," by THEODORE K SALVESEN, F.R.S.E. (with 

 ten plates), ridt Part XIX. pp. 475-486. 



t On the return of Mr BCRS MURDOCH and myself from the Antarctic voyage of 1892-93, in conjunction with 

 Captain LARSEX and Mr H. J. BULL, we endeavoured to raise interest in Britain to develop whale fisheries in 

 connection with the Falkland Islands and Dependencies. Our project, however, was not supported by business men, 

 or by the Colonial Office. Ten years later Captain LARSEX induced Argentine capitalists to form the " Conipania 

 Argentina de Peaca " of Buenos Aires, and erected a whaling station at South Georgia, with four whalers, which lias 

 yielded, and is still yielding, magnificent returns. 



