Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

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and the others followed in quick succession. I received a ‘Royal Warrant’ made out to me; “age: stripling, class for leave: green, class for conduct: lower than a seals belly...” The charge was that I did, "with cruel branding irons, hurt annoy and insult, with criminal intent our Royal Sea Elephants and did so abuse them that they were sore put to it to find who was Angus and who was Agnes. Sentenced to be " Shaved with a red hot razor. Bathed in boiling oil and deprived of the rights of man. Thence to be purged and lustrated." I gave the polar bears as good as I got and ducked the three of them. Afterwards of course the whole court was thrown in - Barry first, in a splendid struggle. While we spliced the main-brace with gin and vermouth, there was a commotion to port, where several large fish, silvery with long dorsal fins and long beak were leaping 3-4 feet above the surface. Swordfish or sailfish perhaps? We had no means of telling. A spate of verse had begun to be let loose on the notice board, first:: "Oh! I love to scuttle scuttle (A cephalopodic cuttle) through the waters of a prehistoric sea, in pursuit of protoplasmic animalculae phantasmic, but potential of the life that is to be. Oh! I love to wallow wallow in a wet and muddy hollow and paddle in the puddles after rain I'm a Pliocenic saurian who roars with voice stentorian o'er mushy marsh and pestilential plain Oh! I love to flitter flitter in the soft autumnal glitter making wheezy sounds with flabby leather wings I'm a playful pterodactyl and in joy I often quack till the murky Mesozoic welkin rings. Oh! I love to burrow burrow in a hot and sandy furrow; I must excavate in ditches little subterranean niches and revel in the musky scent of day. ('tis said the backside of this fellow is tattoed red and yellow, a point on which biologists all bank). So each fossil that he sat on was imprinted with his pattern and his name and number, I'm a lizard who abhors the light of day’ date and rank!) 93
Oh! I love to waddle waddle On the fringes of the Weddell I'm a seal much sought by science on these shores So if by chance you find me Just stop and look behind me Then report sex, size and shape to Dickie Laws. We had sighted no land since St Vincent, but now woke to a wild dawn to see the island of Fernando Noronha on the western horizon and the whitewashed buildings of a penal settlement and a leper colony. I made a watercolour sketch. The most conspicuous feature was a long curved tooth of rock, 1,200 feet high, which overhangs. Darwin described the island as being covered with dense vegetation. I could see the streaks of lava flows and volcanic rubble and scree running down into the deep green of the coastal fringe. Large numbers of birds from nesting colonies on the island flew past the ship, evidently bound for their fishing grounds. Most interesting was the large great frigate bird, with white throat and breast, long black tail and wings. It sailed slowly and majestically over the ship. There were a few flocks of terns about, probably sooty terns and a few of the smaller brown-winged tern. In addition there were large numbers of brown and blue-faced boobies, which were seen again later in the day. Two other birds were: a buffy-grey plover with a white rump and Leach's fork-tailed petrel. Pat Toynbee told me that he had seen numbers of phosphorescent jellyfish while he was on watch and throughout the day we saw beautiful pale pink-lilac ‘Portuguese men o’ war’ (Physalia); attempts to catch one were abortive. Dolphins joined us from time to time as well as schools of tuna. We had a lucid talk from Eric Platt on field geology. I spent some time compiling biological instructions to the bases and gave a couple of talks on seals. Derek produced another piece of verse: Well Capn i met tubby the steward tryin to find a bottle of gin in the forrard hold this morning a helluva comedown this is for me cock he says a few brief centuries ago one of the chief bull ele phant seals 94
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LARGE ANIMALS AND WIDE HORIZONS: AD
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FOREWORD When Richard M. Laws retir
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we might say today and led to deep
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We collaborated with the Royal Navy
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Chapter 1 Northumberland: Boy on th
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occasional nugget for money. The po
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to the cheers of the supporters. Cr
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from the allotments. I can still ta
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From my perspective local politics
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Because we returned each year for s
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uined abbey and a castle on a rocky
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a new lightweight "Raleigh" bicycle
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Chapter 2 Exploring the Lake Distri
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snow, catching the light and shadow
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keen climber and member of the Fell
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irds; stones and rocks abounded and
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The old school buildings were in Cu
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on mycorrhiza (the beneficial close
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inculcated self-reliance and practi
Page 43 and 44: who came by boat across the lake. S
Page 45 and 46: need of rest from the incessant air
Page 47 and 48: matter!" One Saturday in May l941 I
Page 49 and 50: straightforward until we came to th
Page 51 and 52: was still another 2 1 2 miles acros
Page 53 and 54: very strange as he was evidently a
Page 55 and 56: anything like it, hadn’t the fain
Page 57 and 58: Chapter 3 A Cambridge Student I tra
Page 59 and 60: stodgy dried egg omelettes late at
Page 61 and 62: never saw him because he cut most o
Page 63 and 64: patrolled the DR. At the end of eac
Page 65 and 66: Cultural influences at that time Sy
Page 67 and 68: Reading parties and vacation work I
Page 69 and 70: Holme, Ken Ashby, Alan Cock, Elspet
Page 71 and 72: Brian had done some novel work on p
Page 73: went up to Topsham and sampled the
Page 76 and 77: Office. Brian and Colin were biolog
Page 78 and 79: Islands and the Debenham Islands (i
Page 80 and 81: observations of their behaviour. I
Page 82 and 83: I was sorry to miss my elder brothe
Page 84 and 85: suspected it might have been the re
Page 86 and 87: The menu was: Soup - Turkey Sage an
Page 88 and 89: adjust the binocular focus to watch
Page 90 and 91: On New Year’s Eve it was extremel
Page 92 and 93: them off the ship, into the launch
Page 96 and 97: in South Georgia and today the stew
Page 98 and 99: Of bawdy laughter penetrate Unto th
Page 100 and 101: Will be safe to step on and drink B
Page 102 and 103: anaesthetic - Pentathol - required
Page 104 and 105: After a very enjoyable and noisy ev
Page 106 and 107: chorus girl from Leicester. David a
Page 108 and 109: The Falkland Islands Then, at 4.45
Page 110 and 111: Next day I was on galley duty so th
Page 112 and 113: anchiae, and a large encrusting spo
Page 114 and 115: meet Derek. They were out but I fou
Page 116 and 117: was a black terminal band to the ta
Page 118 and 119: midsummer when some begin to get di
Page 120 and 121: ehind, about 70 feet above sea leve
Page 122 and 123: times during l929-1937. In l931/32
Page 124 and 125: leading to North Point is more or l
Page 126 and 127: seldom below -12°C. In terms of hu
Page 128 and 129: the ice faces of the peaks and the
Page 130 and 131: filled the gaps with wood wool and
Page 132 and 133: Work continued on the fitting out a
Page 134 and 135: Hill (907ft). This is the highest p
Page 136 and 137: A fortnight later, we decided to go
Page 138 and 139: Giant petrel colonies were numerous
Page 140 and 141: We cut across Orwell Glacier and ro
Page 142 and 143: more we set off down - but not befo
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Derek and I had a look at a rock ex
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145
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"the thing that strikes you is that
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Fuchs to arrange for us to be sent
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As to rubbish disposal, the site wa
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lively, questioning mind. He fitted
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specimens, clothes etc. and there w
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ut healed fairly quickly. I caught
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presence of others got one down. In
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Cooking. During the winter we were
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irthday. The birthday cake was very
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11 February l949 was the anniversar
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Edward Wilson, the biologist with C
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fortunate, as apart from a few nove
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4 ft., banking up snow behind some
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173
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eflected in the writing. Summer l94
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1.2°C and +1 °C, there was a cont
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was a touch green in hue. A few sno
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completely broke up the ice in the
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then shot up to -4°C overnight, fa
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sudden deepening from 2 ft to 5 ft
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accessible. We had breakfast and lo
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its fore-flippers. I took a series
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fine sunset effect on the Coronatio
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mauve, violet, purple, deep blue, o
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full of brash ice and small growler
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came in squalls, which tended to pu
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was fitter than the others because
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immatures had been absent for some
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possible to lie full length, even d
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should provide about 4 500 calories
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as was standard practice, because o
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journey of about the same duration
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journey, asking for details. Derek
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It was a misty day when I looked ou
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to my bosom, while Derek fiddled wi
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with the Sandefjord Twins behind it
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On 1 August the temperature was -14
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sledge. He was bleeding from one or
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sledge slightly differently, with t
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two-year stock of food, clothing (t
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In mid-July we listened to the FIDS
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We heard that the "John Biscoe" had
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The ships left on 5 December. I was
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18!); also various thermometers, st
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to study a very large established e
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year. In May 1949 I pursued the pro
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specimens back myself under my pers
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Swedish-British expedition so as to
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243
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Signy. The leopard is supposed to b
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possible. The shore here was deeply
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and it was then time for lunch. The
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couldn't move and there was nothing
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unpleasant and salutary incident il
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while I watched for an hour in a sn
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the webs. As Ralph walked away all
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Cow ‘green 7’ flipped snow onto
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(medical) stretcher to weigh the el
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another bull approached to some 60
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the harem. From this it appeared th
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Weddell - probably a 3-yr old femal
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cleaned the skin; lighting a fire a
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Two other females seemed to be ‘e
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proved to be pregnant. Next day a m
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mother had a large bloodstained sca
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attle-scarred males. There appeared
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side to side on the pup’s body as
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the young Weddell pups. We put flip
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283
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The only other birds were the Antar
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In the next few days we watched Dom
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grating, chirring noise and I locat
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shrimping net. He put up the terns,
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one's fingers are anywhere near the
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wings. The undersurface of the body
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notice. It was restless, scratching
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I began to construct what I called
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A week later, penguins were still a
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fish's? There was a lovely tern chi
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e sure of identification in future.
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lew about all over the place. They
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appeared to be formed but occasiona
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gentoos and Adélies - stopping and
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first skua egg near Balin Point. Th
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we helped with the feeding process,
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in order to introduce the species t
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wine, examples of Madeira needlewor
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and visited each other in our respe
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several years published a short pap
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about obtaining registration for th
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She had been thinking about visitin
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got up to go he said, "Oh, by the w
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a grazing tussock beetle was the cu
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showed up startlingly. We put the s
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‘hairy’ fringe over the cliff e
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New Island, Beaver Island and Wedde
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where we still hoped to land, weath
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The evening passed quickly with tea
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and then headed towards Albemarle R
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were towed back to the station and
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This was the first station to be es
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dryers, the guano store, would be f
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Hestesletten of Mt Paget (2915m) an
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and the light administrative duties
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on the rocks. We launched the dingh
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(formerly to Lever Bros.). The wind
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Most of the charts of South Georgia
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flensed from the seal in eight stri
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However, the chart appeared to be s
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to the almost landlocked inner bay.
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lock of rock. We erected the two te
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ow back to Grytviken along the oute
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the cows red-tail. Two of the cows
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(bull O) had 14 cows and 2 pups. Bu
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In area 10 there was one harem of 2
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1 October was a fine morning with l
Page 380 and 381:
In area 6 several cows had hauled o
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them a most interesting monster - S
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There were two harems in area 11, o
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the cows and creates a bank in the
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Then the pup slid out in a rush at
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Discovery Point and more extensive
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depart on the first visit of Biscoe
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of it, although her motor boat made
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The South Georgia Survey team had h
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397
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for lunch on the way for steaks and
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An Arctic Voyage. A friend from ear
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We did three bottom temperature cas
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gone to a dentist in England - anot
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As the trawlers lay all night gutti
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At that time FIDS had no future job
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411
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cutters of 30 to 40 tons that were
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eginning of April, but since Novemb
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and 316 kg of meat and bone meal. F
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the total annual catch. But a decli
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were stable and natural mortality r
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population - the initial cohort - w
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so far. In fact the average oil yie
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In 1963 sub-let its lease to the in
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In the event, when I became Directo
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departure was delayed and we weren'
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There was not too much to do and I
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On 30 November, a few hours sailing
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equivalent to one blue whale, two f
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sperm whale work. Worked till eight
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time on the whaling grounds. We had
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from the stern. One was hauled aboa
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oil and yesterday the expedition
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say, to avoid going over the side,
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was a bitterly cold wind on deck. I
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long low black cloud on the horizon
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uoy, with a wire loop through which
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managed to avoid the ice floes; had
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word because they told me that it s
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Then to Haut Bay, which was very be
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keen sense of humour and stimulatin
Page 464 and 465:
Taking a picnic we drove to Carvoer
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illiantly coloured and the calcite
Page 468 and 469:
Because of the Navy's great interes
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Arthur Stride, was a marine geologi
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work on Balaena. and would be bette
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In l958 I was an invited speaker at
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Molde and had lunch at the hotel. T
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patches of sun. The ferry called at
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479
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Scotland and the Hebrides, about my
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Next day Brenda was off Rona at mid
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We spent a little time that day on
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cleft in the rocks - it was unable
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inspected the landing place to asce
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Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

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