ABOUT WHALES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14377, 21 November 1908, Page 13

ABOUT WHALES.

By Dinormis. j

' Extraordinary in many ways are all animals of the wliale kind, ami I Ikivo always been interested in them. To the evolutionist (and ne are all evolutionists nowadays) they could lmrdly prove other than interesting. Of no other group of animals caii it be said that they better illustrate in their bodily characters the striking truth of the theory of descent than <lo the whales. Whales, unlike'seals, which, to a certain extent, are; amphibians animals, are entirely aquatic mammals, and a realty aquatic mammal seems, as it were, a contradiction in terms—or in Mature. On land we naturally expect to find air-breathing animals,, aiid .in the waters animals that breathe wateiV However, it is not always what we,might ex-1-fot to find that we do find wlwn we look closely into things. The subject of airbreathing animals that have either partially or wholly forsaken life on land for a irately environment is a big and a fascinating one, especially when followed out on 'the lines of praot'ical observation. About whales, however. If we could imagine a world of people who knew notiling of the'existence of marine mammals, we might also imagine 'the incredulity with frliich such a population would receive the assertion that the biggest hot-blooded, airbreathing animals the worlfl had ever he'd liv«l mot ,011 land, but in the oi the ocean surrounding.it. There would be an outcry, sure enough, ar.d any number of shoddy philosophers pushing forward irith lettei's to the papers containing iiTefutable proof that sucn a monetrcnis perversion of Nature wa6 impossible, nqt to say iiiipious. After this hypothetical hubbub had Tun its oourse and become spent, let us imagine a cool-brained anatomist proceeding to dispect a captured whale, say, of the "right" or "baleen" kind. . He would cut away tile blubber casing with the remark' that it had mado a fine blanket for its owner's comfort, while alive; <M that it would, being fat, add greatly to the- animal's buoyiuicy ill the water. He would eample the baleen, or whalebone, hanging in great fringed sheets from the roof of its mouth, and siiy that that was an extraordinary piece of goods, to be laid aside for future consideration. He would dig deep-into its "innards," and find that its head held a very pretty brain; that its heart,lungs, and circulating system were very like those of other mammals, and that its 6tomach had points of similarity with that of the ox. Taking one of its" big "flippers" and dissecting that, ho would find beneath the (unlikely surface an array of arm-bones exactly analogous to three he himself possessed.. Li addition he, would- find attached to these bones a.series of muscles as exactly corresponding to those of his own arm, but out of uss—switched off from function, so to speak—in the paddle of the whale. The muscles that work the itipper or paddle as such lie would find also; good, useful muscles, strong enough to engender such'a blow that would splinter into firewood tlie stoutest whaleboat ever , built. Pursuing his research, the anatomist would discover traces of other things, 1 such as a few, 6hort, bristly hairs; parha'psj-a sort of , rudimentary imperial—on iho muzzle of the whale. More wonderful .than all,! deep in the lleeli of the great; bsast would be met with a few small bones and vestigial muscles, which, on due consideration, he would declare to be tho remains of a petyic arch and a pair of hind limbs! Stopping then to muse over and reason, about these strange findings, he ■ would ultimately declare that in Ins opinion this sea beast of monstrous bulk and aspect strange, had, or rather that its forbears had. once 011 a time walked-the earth on four gootl legs, and wagged some kind of, a tail of its own! , Y .I

We may imagine, then, the hostile reception that would be given to such bizarre ideas by .those folk aforementioned who were getting their first lessons in whaleanatomy and Ilia interpretation thereof." And yet. this is but a. roughly sketched suggestion of some, part of our present common knowledge of animals of the whale kind l . As a matter of fact there are many other points in the bodily structure of whake which are quite inexplicable apart from the light thrown upon them by the theory of descent, from unlike ancestors—the teeth,- for instance, which are developed in the jaw of the embyro of the right and other "baleen" whales, but wEich never cut the glim or even emerge -from their'bony matpx, disappearing and leaving no trace bshind. So it is with other structured throughout 1 tin's whole group of stenge aquatic mammals,,about whose bodily peculiarities there is still room for differences of opinion over details. This, however, is mainly in connection with such questions as that of the form of internal organs, etc,, i)s influenced by the change from » terrestrial to a

marine habitat; Of the value of the whaleas a living example of the truth of descent from unlike ancestors there is 110 question '■« at, all possible. 'Among living animals ' none is better suited to form the text for ( an object lesson in evolution than 16 tilfl ;!;: whale. •' ■ v: a