SOUTH 
length, and were of a uniform dark dun colour — the large specimens 
having a dull yellow appearance. There were no white spots. At 
the edge of the pack-ice during the first half of April 1916, about 
lat. 62^ S. and long. 54° W. (entrance to Bransfield Strait), whales were 
exceedingly numerous, and these were chiefly fin whales, though 
a few seemed to be sei-whales. It is interesting to note that the 
fishing season 1915-1916 was exceptionally productive— no less than 
11,860 whales having been captured in the Falkland area alone. 
The South Atlantic whaling industry, then, has reached a critical 
stage in development. It is now dependent on the captm-es of the 
large fin and blue whales, humpbacks having been rapidly reduced 
in numbers, so that the total stock appears to have been affected. 
With regard to the other species, the southern right whale has never 
been abundant in the captures, the sperm-whale and the sei-whale 
have shown a good deal of seasonal variation, though never numerous, 
and the bottlenose and lesser piked whale have so far not been 
hunted, except in the case of the latter for human food. The vigorous 
slaughter of whales both in the sub-Antarctic and in the sub-tropics, 
for the one area reacts on the other, calls for universal legislation to 
protect the whales from early commercial extinction, and the 
industry, which is of world-wide economic importance, from having 
to be abandoned. The British Government, with the control of the 
world's best fisheries, is thoroughly ahve to the situation, and an 
Inter-departmental Committee, under the direction of the Colonial 
Office, is at i.)resent devising a workable scheme for suitable legis- 
lation for the protection of the whales and for the welfare of the 
industry. 
364 
