xiv SOUTHERN WHALE FISHERIES 207 



became scarce on the New Zealand coasts, but in all parts of 

 its range. To destroy it in its last remaining breeding haunts 

 was to destroy it everywhere. Although we have at present, 

 unfortunately, very little accurate information about the habits 

 and migrations of whales, there is every reason to believe that 

 in the Antarctic summer this species retired nearer the South 

 Pole. Sir James C. Eoss in 1840, in lat. 64, nearly due 

 south of New Zealand, and again in 1842 in nearly the 

 same latitude, south of the Falkland Islands, found right 

 whales very abundant in the month of December. On the 

 strength of this observation it has been thought that a whale 

 corresponding to the Arctic right whale might be a permanent 

 inhabitant of the Antarctic icy seas. Two years ago some 

 ships sailed from Dundee in the hope of meeting with it, but 

 they were completely disappointed. No trace of such whales 

 was found, for doubtless Sir James Eoss had only come across 

 the summer haunts of the same whales which were then 

 undergoing the process of ruthless extermination in their 

 winter breeding places on the Australian and New Zealand 

 coasts. Such having been the fate of this species, and the 

 sperm whale not being habitually found in icy seas, the 

 probability of any large whale being again met with in 

 the Antarctic regions is very remote. 



Our Colonial whale fisheries are practically extinct, 

 probably never to be revived, at all events with anything like 

 the success they met (with formerly. Not that any species of 

 whale is likely to be completely exterminated by man. It is 

 only too easy to exterminate an animal whose habitat is confined 

 to land, especially if that land is of limited extent, as in the 

 case of an island ; but the ocean is vast, and the possibilities 

 of escape from pursuers in it are great. When the numbers of 

 any species become so small that it no longer pays to hunt 

 them, they have a chance, as has been most strikingly shown 

 in the case of the North Atlantic or Biscay whale. Without 

 doubt, they would increase again in the southern seas, and if 

 means could be taken to give the whale an effectual close time, 

 the Australian and New Zealand black-whale fishery could be 

 revived, as it has been partially in Tasmania ; but the difficulty 

 and expense of establishing any sufficient protection would 



