I. MAMMALIA. 
By Epwarp A. Witson, M.B. 
CETACHA. 
(1 Plate.) 
AurHouGH there are no land mammals of any kind at present known to exist in the 
Antarctic, there is an amphibious and marine mammalian fauna in the ice-covered 
waters of the region, comprising an unexpected number of species, both of Seals and 
Whales. i 
In the case of the Whales it would be hard to say how many different species are 
to be assigned to the Ross Sea alone. But so far as our own observations go, we can 
differentiate, though we cannot as yet name, at least six or seven that are distinct from 
one another. 
BALANA AUSTRALIS. 
The Southern Right Whale. 
Balena australis, Desmoulins, Dict. Class. d’Hist. Nat., ii. (1822), p. 161; Flower, List Cetacea B. M., 
(1885), p. 2; Hutton and Drummond, Animals of New Zealand (1904), p. 42. 
It seems more than doubtful whether this whale has ever frequented the ice- 
covered seas of the Antarctic area, but if it has, it is now quite certain that it has 
either changed its summer haunts from the Ross Sea, where Sir James Ross reported 
its existence in the forties of the last century, or has become so reduced in numbers 
as to be practically on the verge of extinction. Many whalers have journeyed in search 
of this whale to those very seas, and the remarks which are quoted below form the only 
evidence of its existence there at the present time. 
Captain Larsen, in an account of the voyage of the ‘Jason,’ has given some of his 
experiences, but beyond saying : “‘ We have had a boat out . . . . in the hope of finding 
Rethvalen,” and ‘“‘ the mate saw three more spouts, and he could only ascertain that 
one was from a Rethval .. . . but did not see the whale again,” he gives no other 
indication of its existence. He was at the time in about 67° 8. lat., 61° W. long. 
Mr. Bull during his cruise in the ‘ Antarctic’ (1894-5) saw no sign of a Right Whale 
farther south than the Campbell Islands, though many, he says, were seen in that 
neighbourhood during May and June, and “ plenty” were killed much farther north at 
the Kermadec Islands during the preceding winter months. On June 29th, off the 
Campbell Islands, they were seen in pairs and in large schools, but few were seen after 
this date, and none at the Auckland Islands, where the ship next went. Captain Jensen 
(1898-1900) too has killed the whale off the Campbell Islands, but has not seen one in 
VOL. II. B 
