Summary
No detailed report on marine mammals has been published previously from the Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911 –14 (AAE)or the British,Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition of 1929 –31 (BANZARE).Five typescript reports and three manuscripts from archives of The Mawson Institute for Antarctic Research,University of Adelaide are published here.Five deal with marine mammals of the AAE and three are from the BANZARE. Two of the AAE reports concern seals of Macquarie Island,primarily elephant seals as well as vagrant antarctic seals.One was written by H.Hamilton,biologist of the AAE party at Macquarie Island, the other by E.R.Waite,biologist on the first subantarctic cruise of Aurora .Two reports deal with the third antarctic cruise of Aurora in the summer of 1913 –14.Pertinent marine mammal observations have been extracted from the biological log of J.G.Hunter,Senior Biologist of the Expedition,and cross-referenced to the narrative of that cruise by the leader of the expedition,Douglas Mawson.A report on Ross seals has also been included;its authorship is unclear, but it was written either by J.G.Hunter or by G.F.Ainsworth. Only one report from the AAE specifically concerns large cetaceans; it lists those seen near the Antarctic coast by Captain James Davis, a retired whaler on the second antarctic cruise of Aurora in the summer of 1912 –13.The BANZARE reports are from manuscripts by Professor T.Harvey Johnston,Chief Biologist on Discovery during the two BANZARE cruises.Aspects of these reports are reviewed in light of current knowledge by P.D.Shaughnessy (pinniped observations, section III.A),R.A.Tedman (reproductive anatomy of pinnipeds, section III.B)and by G.J.B.Ross (cetacean observations,section III.C).In these reviews,reference is made to published AAE and BANZARE reports that refer to marine mammals,particularly those concerning food of seals. Hamilton and Waite described harvesting methods used for elephant seals at Macquarie