KtJNGL. 6V. VÉt. AKADEMIENS HANDLINGAR BAND 40. N:0 5. 49 



It is very fat so that the blubber-coat of a Black whale in good condition has 

 a thickness of 17 inches on the sides above the anus, and is still thicker, although 

 less oily towards the back. Such a whale yields 40 barrels 1 of oil. 



The tongue, which may be seen on fig. 34 Pl. VII, is not so gelatinous and 

 flabby as that of the Humpbacks and Rorquals but much finner, having about the 

 same consistency as blubber. 



A dead Black whale explodes, or bursts open, after about 24 hours with a tre- 

 mendous force so that pieces of the entrails are thrown far and wide. 



Concerning the propagation and the migration of the Black whale of the south- 

 ern Atlantic it is of course difficult to say anything with certainty after the experi- 

 ence of only one year, but there are, however, some hints given. The only pregnant 

 female of Black whale shot at South Georgia during Sörling's stay was killed 

 the 12th of May and its foetus measured 4 m. 19 cm. (conf. Pl. VII fig. 35). It 

 could not have lasted such a long time before a foetus of that size must have been 

 bom. On the other hand, it does not appear probable that the Black whales of the 

 southern Atlantic bring forth their young in the cold and stormy seas of South 

 Georgia when it is known that Black whales in other regions for that purpose seek 

 more temperate and sheltered places. It is not improbable therefore, that the dis- 

 appearance of the Black whales from the South Georgia waters towards the middle 

 of the winter has something, at least partly, to do with the propagation. If I re- 

 member right I have heard Captain Larsen say that during the winter the Black 

 whales appeared to move, all of them, in a certain and the same direction, viz. NE. 

 This might perhaps be put in connection with the fact that Black whales come »into 

 Table and False Bays in June and July for the purpose of calving. » 2 It may, with 

 the present scanty knowledge, perhaps be a little too rash to assert how the migra- 

 tion actually goes, but it seems at least possible that when the Black whales leave 

 the Cape seas in spring they go south and then gradually work westward. In the 

 antarctic autumn they have come so far west that, when they return east to Cape 

 again, they pass west and north of South Georgia. — It must be remembered that 

 the first Black whale was seen at South Georgia at the end of February. — This 

 theory agrees also quite well with the common belief among whalers that there must 

 be somewhere on a more southern latitude than South Georgia a »bank» on which 

 the Black whales feed during the antarctic summer. 



1 Empty kerosene barrels were used for storing the oil. 

 -' W. L. Sclater: Mammals of South Africa II p. 181. 



K. St. Vet. Akad. Hand], Band 40. N:o 5. 



