124 iREPORTS ON THE STATE OP SCIENCE. — 1915. 



made in the last Report of the Commitlee that a similar committee 

 should be appointed for Australasia. 



In order that it may be in a position to resume operations when 

 international relations are restored to the normal, your Committee asks 

 for its reappointment, but for the present without a grant. 



Belniullet Whaling Station. — Report of the Committee, consisting 

 of Dr. A. E. Shipley (Chairman), Professor J. Stanley 

 G-ABDiNER (Secretary), Professor W. A. Herdman, Eev. W. 

 Spotswood Green, Mr. E. S. Goodrich, Professor H. W. 

 Marett Tims, and Mr. E. M. Barrington, appointed to 

 investigate the Biological Problems incidental to the 

 Belmullet Whaling Station. 



The Committee arranged with Mr. J. Erik Hamilton for the further 

 prosecution of their researches in 1914. He proceeded to Belmullet on 

 May 24, but received mobilisation orders early in August. The Com- 

 mittee sympathise with Mr. Hamilton in that owing to ill-health he was 

 subsequently discharged as medically unfit. Mr. Hamilton's report 

 lis appended. 



The Committee regret that both of the Belmullet fisheries, Blacksod 

 Bay and Inishkea, are at present suspended. Inquiries were made as 

 ito other northern fisheries, as the Committee proposed to ask permission 

 of the Council to send Mr. Hamilton, who is anxious to continue his 

 work, to one of these. They too are closed. The grant for the 

 present year has consequently lapsed. The Committee ask that it shall be 

 regranted for 1916, and that they shall be empowered to substitute 

 another station iu the North Atlantic in 1916 if the Belmullet stations 

 are still closed. 



Report by J. Erik Hamilton, M.Sc. 

 I. Inirodiiction. 



On May 23, 1914, I proceeded to Blacksod Bay to continue the 

 investigations on whaling in which I had been engaged the previous year. 



The 1914 season was successful, in spite of the fact that the use 

 of three steamers instead of two, as in former years, made it necessary 

 for financial success to secure a cori'espondingly larger number of 

 whales. Eighty-six whales were taken, which yielded over three 

 thousand barrels of oil. 



The whaling station formerly at Inishkea did not open in 1914. The 

 plant has been removed to the Spanish coast of the Mediterranean for 

 winter fishing. It is expected that Fin Whales will foi'm the bulk of the 

 catch. 



During this season I had an opportunity of tasting the flesh of B. 

 borealis, which is to my mind inferior to that of B. miisculus (Blue 

 Whale), although the Norwegians consider it to be the more palatable. 

 'The Scandinavian hands at the station salted down a great part of 

 •,the flesh of the solitary example of this whale which I saw. One 

 :specimen of B. physalus (Finner) was lactating very freely, and as it 

 Nwas recently killed I tasted the milk, which is in colour dead-white, 



