Discovery reports (1938) Discovery reports discoveryreports17inst Year: 1938 THE HUMPBACK WHALE 37 mentioned one hundred and fifteen [caught during the period August istto October 8th 1911 at Port Alexander] only six had white flippers, but this in the northern hemisphere is the rule'. This proportion is 5-2 per cent and does not greatly differ from the pro- portion with white flippers recorded in the present series, which is 16 per cent of males or 7-5 per cent of all whales. Goodall (1913) records that all the whales he saw at Durban were of the marble- bellied class, and in consequence Hi
Discovery reports (1938) Discovery reports discoveryreports17inst Year: 1938 THE HUMPBACK WHALE 37 mentioned one hundred and fifteen [caught during the period August istto October 8th 1911 at Port Alexander] only six had white flippers, but this in the northern hemisphere is the rule'. This proportion is 5-2 per cent and does not greatly differ from the pro- portion with white flippers recorded in the present series, which is 16 per cent of males or 7-5 per cent of all whales. Goodall (1913) records that all the whales he saw at Durban were of the marble- bellied class, and in consequence Hinton postulates that from' the South Georgian feeding grounds the black-bellied schools migrate up the west coast of Africa, the marble-bellied schools up the east coast, and the white-bellied ones perhaps up the east coast of America. The present series gives no support to this suggestion, because of the four Humpbacks, of which colour notes are available, taken at Saldanha Bay on the west coast of South Africa, three belonged to the class 'marble-bellied' and one to the class 'black-bellied'; and of the eleven from Durban six were black-bellied, three white-bellied and two marble-bellied. Further, Olsen (1914-15) says, 'these [three colour] varieties do not keep apart in small lots but mingle together. Thus of one pair one would often be black and the other light bellied ', and ' having regard to the extra- ordinary variability of the Humpback in the matter of colour, one can scarcely attribute much systematic importance to this character'. With this last sentence one cannot but agree, adding only the reservation that in different parts of the world the proportions of the various colour classes appear to differ more or less constantly within the schools, in which all the colour classes occur and are mixed. Unfortunately, it is now impossible, owing to the small numbers of Humpbacks taken on the southern whaling grounds, to investigate the statement made by Morch (1911) and re
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