A Note on the Whales Frequenting South A frican Waters. 75 
south of lat. 64° S. scarcely a day passed without our getting a sight of one 
of these whales." But is it acuto-rostrata or honaerensis Burm. ? 
In the reference given by Lillie as to the identity of the animal I read 
that no example was secured. The identification is thus one of sight— at 
close quarters it is true. As to the evidence quoted by him by Norwegian 
whalers that the " Minkehval," which is their name for B. acuto-rostrata, is 
shot off the South Shetlands during the whaling season, I put little reliance 
upon it from my experience here with Norwegian whalers. 
But the fact remains that on the shores of Table Bay was stranded four 
years ago an undoubted example of a 12-ft.-long juvenile Balaenojptera 
acuto-rostrata. with the typical white band on the pectoral fin. The skeleton 
is now in the Museum. 
With the evidence of the Antarctic I prefer to consider it as yet a 
roamer from the North. 
Mega/ptera longimana, or M. hoops, Hump-back Whale. We have in this 
animal a whale of quite different build and not reaching more than 50 ft., 
if ever so much. Liouville, however, mentions 58 ft. 6 in. The species is 
probably carcinophagous ; some Cape examples have been found to be partly 
ichthyophagous. Incidentally the animal has an os -penis — a thing unknown 
among other whales. 
The fact is now well established according to my lights and observations 
that certain northern whales are specifically identical with the southern 
whales, and are the kinds of whales found on our coast. That they are 
migrants, perhaps with the exception of B. hrydei, is a well-established fact, 
but what is probably less known is that the animals go to warmer equatorial 
waters to breed or calve. If they are intercepted on their way there from 
the Antarctic or on their return to the Antarctic, the multiplication of the 
species will be greatly hindered, to say the least. 
At the present day the whaling industry in the South Polar Circle has 
attained such dimensions that unless checked or regulated one may well 
speculate on the time left for survival of the Hump-back, Blue Whale, Fin- 
Whale, Seihval and Bryde's Whale, etc., frequenting our waters. One 
vessel in the south, during the six months' whaling season, may capture 
more than 300 animals. The total number caught off South Georgia and 
the South Shetlands together is said to have exceeded 10,000 in one year. 
As stated before, the whales frequenting our coasts are travellers to or from 
the equatorial waters where they resort for calving ; in each of the three 
species principally hunted in the south the pairing season is at its height 
when the whaling season is either slackening or not carried on, and that if 
these whales are to be protected during their breeding season on behalf of 
he future of the whaling industry it must be done further north than 
South Georgia. Even here the number of captured Hump-backs is almost 
negligible, as is admitted by all whaling people. Most of them ascribe the 
