The baleen whales of the South Atlantic / by Sir William Turner.

  • William Turner
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The baleen whales of the South Atlantic / by Sir William Turner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    \\ -*♦+* , II.—The Baleen Whales J5f the SovuU; Atlantic. By Sir William Turner, Emeritus Profes§^^^^loiny, K.C.B., F.R.S., D.C.L. (MS. received October 26, 1914. Read November 2, 1914.) Whaling companies have for some years successfully conducted a whale fishery off the shores of the South Shetlands, Graham Land, South Orkneys, and South Georgia, where the waters of the Antarctic mingle with the South Atlantic Ocean. A year ago Mr G. Millen Coughtrey, a former student of the University, an employe of the New Whaling Company of Leith, Messrs Salvesen & Co., kindly presented to me specimens from this southern latitude, which have been of value and interest in extending our knowledge of the Cetacea frequenting these seas. In a memoir communicated to the Society in December of that j'-ear * I described from these specimens the external Auditory Meatus and its plug of wax, also the Tympano-petrous bones in several species of Cetacea, which, when compared with the corresponding- bones in the Anatomical Museum of the University, were identified as from the Blue Whale, Balcenoptera sibbaldi, the Sye Whale, Balcenoptera borealis, the common Rorqual, Balcenoptera musculus, and the Humpbacked Whale, Megajotera boop>s (longimana). It was clear, therefore, that these well-known Northern species were also denizens of the South Atlantic.^ In September of this year Mr Coughtrey added to the collection by kindly presenting specimens obtained from whales captured off the South Shetlands and Graham Land during the fishing season 1913-14, which have further extended our knowledge of the species of Cetacea that frequent the Southern Ocean. This collection, in addition to examples from B. sibbaldi, B. borealis, and Megaptera boops, contained a tympano-petrous bone of the South Atlantic Right Whale, also a tympanic bone and foetus * Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., vol. xxxiv. p. 10, Dec. 1, 1913. t In a recently published memoir Mr Theodore E. Salvesen has described the Whale Fisheries of the Falkland Islands and Dependencies. He enumerates Megaptera, the three species of Bakenoptera referred to in the text, and the Southern Right Whale, Balcena australis, as the baleen whales captured by the whalers. He estimates that nearly 11,000 animals were killed during the season, November 1, 1912, to April 30, 1913. He gives the approximate value of the whalebone and oil from each species respectively, that of the fresh llesh as food, and of the whale guano as a manure. The gross value of these products was about £1,350,000. See Report on Scientific Results of Scottish National Antarctic Expedition