WHALES AND DOLPHINS 311 



to the use of explosive gun-fired missiles. The long flippers, black or piebald in 

 colour, with serrated front edges, render them easy of recognition. The black 

 whalebone is narrower than that of rorquals. Of late years humpbacks have 

 been regularly hunted — presumably by Norwegians — off South and East Africa, 

 where they abound, as well as in South Georgia. 



In addition to stations on their own coasts, in the Shetlands, on the coast of 

 Mayo, and elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere, the Norwegians are killing 

 rorquals by the thousand off South Georgia and in other parts of the Antarctic 

 Ocean. This fishery is leased to Norwegians by the British Government; but 

 unless proper means are taken for the restriction of the slaughter there is every 

 probability that the golden goose will be killed. In other words, whaling will 

 become no longer profitable ; and when that time comes the whales will have a 

 chance of recuperating ; but this must be a long process, for whales, as a rule, are 

 slow breeders ; one calf being generally produced at a birth, although rorquals and 

 humpbacks not infrequently have twins. As to the age at which whales breed, 

 there is probably no authentic information, the same being the case with regard 

 to the duration of pregnancy ; but in any case the rate of increase must be com- 

 paratively slow, and it is certain that wherever whaling is practised with the 

 energy characteristic of the Norwegian stations the rate of reproduction can bear 

 no proportion to that of the destruction. As an indication of the appalling extent 

 of their slaughter, it may be mentioned that during the whaling-season of 1911 

 the number of whales taken in South Georgia was 7000, in the South Shetlands 3500, 

 and in South African waters 4000, while the total number killed in the same season 

 throughout the Southern Hemisphere was estimated at 17,500 head, with a yield of 

 500,000 barrels of oil, and a net value of £1,750,000. This does not represent any- 

 thing like the world's catch of whales during the same season, for in the Northern 

 Hemisphere (exclusive of the Japanese, Dundee, New Bedford, and San Francisco 

 fisheries) something like 5000 whales were killed, these yielding about 156,000 

 barrels of oil, with a cash value of £625,000. In estimating the extent of the 

 drain on the whales in the southern seas, it is important that this item should not 

 be overlooked, as several of the species, especially the humpbacks on the east coast 

 of Africa, are known to make extensive seasonal migrations, so that a school 

 which has been hunted at one season to the north of the equator may be attacked 

 at another to the south of the same. The world's total catch in 1911 was estimated 

 at 22,500 whales, with a yield of 620,000 barrels, or 103,000 tons, of oil, and a 

 value of between two and a half and three millions sterling. This take was twice 

 as large as that of 1910. If these figures relating to the southern fishery be 

 contrasted with some of those of the whaling in the Northern Hemisphere, a better 

 idea will be gained of the enormous extent of the slaughter in the case of the 

 former. As regards northern whaling, it appears that between the years 1814 and 

 1823 the number of Greenland right-whales taken by British vessels was 12,907, 

 between 1824 and 1833 the catch had fallen to 9532, while between 1834 and 1843 

 it was only 1221. These figures bear no sort of comparison with those of the 

 fishery in the southern seas, the Greenland whale having been always much less 

 numerous than either finners or humpbacks, but they, nevertheless, heralded its 

 practical extermination. A further serious matter in connection with Antarctic 



