range of this animal agrees best with that of the Common Seal, that is,
it sweeps along the North American coast from Florida right up into
Baffin’s Bay, thence to the south coasts of Greenland, across the North
Atlantic, skirting Britain and Scandinavia, to Spitzbergen. Named from
the remarkable prominence of the front upper-part of the head, this is
one of the largest and most powerful of the Northern Seals. Certainly
it is the fiercest and most dangerous, as the Eskimo know to their
cost in attacking it from their kayaks. It does not hesitate to return
an assault, and the crest, it is said, affords some protection from
wounds inflicted by the club. These brutes fight ferociously among
themselves, and the roaring during such ice-battles, in the still
Arctic regions, is said to be audible four miles off. The so-called
crest, hood, or bladder, is in reality nothing of the sort, but only a
peculiar enlargement of the nasal passages, more particularly developed
in the old animals of both sexes. The configuration of the head of
this creature is hemispherical, and proportionally broad and short.
The bony parts of the snout, and the cartilaginous septum of the nose
and nostrils generally, are so formed as to allow great dilatation of
these parts. That is to say, the two passages of the nostrils are,
in the full-grown animal, exceedingly capacious fleshy tunnels. From
youth onwards, this region acquires prominence, and, partly through
habit and growth of the structures in later life, the animal when
roused inflates, by compression of the muscles of upper-lip and nose,
the cavities in question, so much so as to produce the expansion on
the forehead which has given rise to its specific _soubriquet_. All
engravings, even our own, represent this structure as reaching farther
back on the head than the absolute anatomical conformation of the parts
warrants, but in the live animal the skin of the head rearwards to some
extent swells in unison with the puffed nostril, and hence to a certain
degree simulates a hood or crest. Some sealers regard the so-called
bladder as an air reservoir for buoyancy, an idea totally at variance
with its true nature. The teeth of this genus are peculiar, the
incisors being fewer in number. The formula is--Incisors, (2-2)/(1-1);
canines, (1-1)/(1-1); premolars, (4-4)/(4-4); molars, (1-1)/(1-1) = 30.
From eight to twelve feet in length has been given as the limits of
size it obtains. The young are pure white; when a year old they become
greyish, and the hue deepens, becoming deep chestnut and black above,
though the lighter shade is retained on the under parts; chiefly on
the back are black spots and rings of white. The muzzle is hairy, and
the hair on the rest of the body long, with thick soft under-wool. It
visits Greenland in May and June, leaves in July, and again returns in
August and September. Fabricius states that they are polygamous. This
animal is one which the sealers hunt, it frequenting the outside of
the ice-packs. Rink estimates the average annual catch in Greenland at
3,000. An individual will yield 120 lbs. of blubber, and as much as 200
lbs. of flesh.
THE ELEPHANT SEAL.[226]--This creature, like the last, has a
peculiar geographical range, but is unique, inasmuch as it is found
north and south of the equator. It should, however, be stated that Dr.
Gill has designated the northern form by a separate name (_Macrorhinus
angustirostris_), though the distinctive characters have as yet not
been substantiated by other naturalists. Meantime, we may be justified
in regarding them as one form. It existed formerly in numbers on
the Californian coast. But it is best known as frequenting, during
the beginning of this century, such islands as Juan Fernandez, the
Falklands, New Georgia, South Shetlands, Tristan d’Acunha, Kerguelen’s
Land, and, indeed, several of the islands scattered in the Antarctic
Ocean. In the young and females, the characteristic feature, or
so-called proboscis, is deficient, but in the old males it extends
quite a foot beyond the angle of the mouth, and hence the name of
Elephant Seal. The females are nine or ten feet, the males fourteen,
sixteen, and even twenty feet in length. The colour varies with age
from brown to leaden-grey. It seems that they bring forth their young
at different seasons in the southern and northern latitudes, in the
latter about May or June, in the former somewhat earlier. Accounts
differ as to its food, some saying cuttle-fish and seaweed are its
principal nutriment.
[Illustration: TEETH OF THE CRESTED SEAL.]
Lord Anson, Captain Cook, and M. Péron, each give accounts respecting
its extraordinary abundance in southern regions, but their numbers have
since been decimated. Captain Scammon describes them as crawling out
of the surf towards the ravines half a mile distant from the water,
where they congregated in hundreds. Unless when excited, their movement
on land is slower than that of the ordinary Seals, but they ascend
broken elevated ground fifty or sixty feet above the sea. He says that
when sailors are destitute of tobacco-pipes, they hollow its short
canine teeth into bowls and use the quills of the Pelican for shanks.
Their hunting in Desolation and Herd’s Islands is a most exposed and
solitary pursuit. The ship is manned with a double crew, and some
of the men are landed on the dangerous, ever-stormy coasts of these
islands. Food and necessaries are provided, and rude shanties erected
of rough boards, tarred canvas, and pieces of lava-rock. In this dank
habitation, planted between an iceberg on the one side and a bluff
volcanic mountain on the other, they are left to hunt as best they
can, in a climate windy, rainy, cold, and often snowy. Nevertheless,
undergoing hardships and privations of no common kind, excitement
and prospect of gain compensate for their fatigues and temporary
banishment. By the flickerings of a murky oil lamp, and fat and coal
diffusing heat, these reckless adventurers pass the long, dreary, cold,
evenings in card-playing and boisterous fun. Sea Elephants’ tongues and
water-fowl are gladly intermingled with coarser fare. The men divide
themselves into groups, and scour the coast in all directions, killing
such numbers as fall in their way. They either transport the blubber
and skins to their stores, or bury it for a time until opportunity of
its removal is afforded. Afterwards it is placed in casks, and these
are rolled by the gangs to the beach, when their vessel arrives. The
casks are then launched into the surf, pulled through the rollers by
the boats to the ship, where they are duly stowed. In the Californian
district, the skin of the animal is ripped up along the back and
reflected; the blubber is cut into “_horse pieces_,” about a foot
square, and a hole made through which a rope is passed. The pieces are
again strung on a raft-rope, a line is made fast to this, when they
are dragged through the breakers to the small boat, and towed to the
vessel. On board, large pots set in a brick furnace are ready prepared,
where the blubber is rendered, the oil extracted being very superior
for lubricating purposes. In these voyages the crews, unlike the Dundee
fishers, hunt both Seals and Whales at the same time, the Americans
having quite a monopoly of this special trade.
[Illustration: ELEPHANT SEAL.]
ROSS’S LARGE-EYED SEAL.[227]--In the voyage of the _Erebus_
and _Terror_ to the Antarctic regions, 1839-43, there was obtained a
Seal named after the commander of the Expedition. Little or nothing
is recorded of its special habitat and habits, the main peculiarities
resting in its skeleton. The stuffed skin, now in the British Museum,
is of a greenish-yellow colour, with close, oblique, yellow stripes
on the side, pale beneath, and the fur is close-set and rigid. The
skull is broad, with great orbits. This genus has six molar teeth on
each side of the upper and five on each side of the lower jaw. The
canines are of very moderate dimensions, and the teeth, as a whole, are
relatively small. Its specific name is derived from its great eyes.
THE SEA LEOPARD.[228]--Under the names Sea Leopard and Leopard
Seal, indiscriminately used by the sailors or Southern sealers, two
animals, apparently distinct, have evidently been confounded by them
as well as by naturalists. Indeed, another seemingly totally different
animal of the North Pacific has also been named Leopard Seal by
Scammon. That to which the title Sea Leopard appears most applicable
is what De Blainville and others called the Small-nailed Seal (_Phoca
leptonyx_), and F. Cuvier the Narrow-muzzled Seal (_Stenorhynchus
leptonyx_). Its precise distribution is uncertain, but it has been
found on the coasts of Australia, New Zealand, Falkland, Campbell,
Auckland, and Lord Howe’s Islands, and the Antarctic Ocean (on
pack-ice). It may possibly be met with elsewhere, but the foregoing
are authenticated localities. Mr. A. W. Scott describes male and
female stuffed specimens in the Sydney Museum. The old male measures
twelve feet in length; the glossy spotted skin is of a light silvery
grey, with pale yellowish-white in patches, brought into relief by
black-grey shading; its back and sides are darker, and belly lighter.
The younger but adult female is seven feet long. Her colour above is
darkish-grey, almost black in the middle line, intermixed by narrow
markings of darker hue, and of yellowish-white, and the under parts
without spots and also yellowish-white. A specimen kept alive for
several days at Port Jackson had a long muzzle, a long thin neck,
and in its habits generally it resembled the Seal tribe. Dr. George
Bennett killed a male in Shoalhaven River (August, 1859), several miles
above salt-water reach, which had a water-mole in its stomach. Dr.
Knox states that those he examined in New Zealand contained in their
stomachs fish-bones, gulls’ feathers, and seaweeds. Captain Musgrave,
in his forced residence on the Aucklands, already referred to, alludes
to this animal as the Black Seal, and describes a fight between one
and a Sea Lion (_Otaria_); the flesh, he says, is rank. So far as his
observations go, they remain at these islands pretty nearly all the
year round, but others think that they occasionally migrate, or, at
least, at certain seasons less frequently approach the land. The skull
is remarkably elongated; the double-rooted molar teeth are compressed
and serrate, or have a three-lobed crown, the middle being the longest.
This animal has but four incisors above and four below, and the canines
are of moderate dimensions. The nails on the hind feet are almost
absent.
[Illustration: SEA LEOPARD SEALS.]
[Illustration: TEETH OF THE SEA LEOPARD.]
WEDDELL’S SEAL.[229]--A couple of stuffed specimens and a few
skulls of this Seal in the British Museum, and a stuffed specimen in
Edinburgh, are the sole material on which this species is founded. Dr.
R. Hamilton, in the “Naturalist’s Library,” described the latter as
the Leopard Seal (_Phoca leopardina_, Jameson). Captain Weddell had
brought it from the Southern Orkneys, and, according to him, during
life the animal is pale greyish above, yellowish beneath, and the back
spotted with pale white. Dr. Gray mentions the London male specimen as
fulvous, with a blackish-grey line down the back, the female and young
corresponding to Captain Weddell’s description. The distinction between
this and the last species is barely appreciable from their external
coat, such differences as exist being in the skull. Weddell’s Seal,
or, as Gray names it, the False Sea Leopard (_Leptonyx Weddellii_),
has a relatively shorter and broader skull, fuller in the brain-pan,
largish orbits, and a weak lower jaw. The molars are not tri-cusped;
the front one in each jaw is single-rooted, and the rest double-rooted.
The Antarctic Expedition brought home skulls, and skins and skulls were
afterwards obtained by Captain Fitzroy, R.N., from the River Santa
Cruz, Patagonia. Neither they nor Weddell give us any information
respecting the life-habits of this animal. It will thus be seen that
its geographical area, and especially its geographical relations
towards the previous species, are at present uncertain. On account
of the peculiarities of cranium and dentition, Gray forms it into a
separate genus.
THE CRAB-EATING SEAL, OR SAW-TOOTH STERRINCK OF
OWEN.[230]--The interest in this creature lies probably not so
much in the nature of its food as in the greater saw-like character of
its molars, which strongly resemble those of the fossil Zeuglodon, an
animal of the Whale tribe. The Crab-eating Seal inhabits an undefined
area of the Antarctic Seas. Above it is of a nearly uniform olive
colour, below and the sides of the face yellowish-white, and there
are a few often confluent spots of a light colour on the flanks. The
five-toed fore feet, whose wrist is said to be very short, are clawed,
but the hind ones are clawless. In number, the teeth agree with the
Sea Leopard’s; though the first, second, and third front upper and the
first front lower molars are single-rooted, the rest double-rooted.
Moreover, nearly all the molar teeth have two or three cusps behind
the middle strong conical lobe, while in front there is usually only a
single small conical elevation. Thus the hinder border of these molars
is considerably more saw-like than in the Sea Leopard. It differs also
from the latter both in the lower jaw and upper parts of the cranium,
but more particularly in the nasal and facial regions. Little is known
with regard to its life-history.
* * * * *
The last three Seals some have considered under three distinct generic
names, for reasons already given. If importance be attached to the
dentition, this separation is allowable; but on the other hand there
are considerable resemblances which others regard as only of specific
weight. The generic term _Stenorhynchus_, first used by F. Cuvier
in 1824 for the so-called Sea Leopard, and which has been at times
indiscriminately applied by different naturalists to all three animals
with multi-serrate crowned teeth, but here partially restricted to
the first two, is a name well known and still applicable to one or
other. Nevertheless, Lamarck, in 1819, had designated a genus of Crabs
_Stenorhynchus_, universally accepted, and also in current use up to
the present time. Some confusion having thus occasionally resulted,
Professor Peters drew attention to the awkwardness of the circumstance,
and proposed that the term _Ogmorhinus_ should replace _Stenorhynchus_,
as applied to the Seals; Lamarck’s name having priority being retained
for the Crabs. This well exemplifies one among the many difficulties
and cross-purposes incident to nomenclature, &c., of Natural History,
where, in the vast array of names and facts presented, glaring
discrepancies will arise, despite the constant revision of those
devoted to its study.
* * * * *
Before closing this chapter, there is one subject which I believe
deserves mention, however briefly. The enormous slaughter of the Seal
tribe is a matter of serious consideration, if only in a mercantile
spirit. Among the sealers, neither sex nor age is spared, and therefore
at the present wholesale rate of destruction it is easy to foresee
early comparative, if not absolute, extinction of the tribe. Nothing
can be clearer than the fact that since the Americans in their Alaska
territory have adopted the plan of killing a prescribed number annually
of the young and male Seals only, in other words, of protecting the
breeding females, the Fur Seals have shown no tendency to diminution,
but rather an apparent increase. Nature has her limits, and the Seals
have other enemies to contend with besides man. Yet the latter, taking
advantage of the maternal affections, and with the aid of deadly
firearms and the like, in a certain space of time commits more fatal
havoc among them than all their other foes combined. Several persons
have urged a close-time. The fact is there are great difficulties
in the way of this, for even in well-protected British rivers and
fisheries generally, Salmon and others of the finny tribe are caught at
forbidden times, in spite of Acts of Parliament and other regulations.
Who is to watch the sealers in far-off inhospitable climes? Certainly
in the Northern sealing-grounds the departure of the ships could be
made somewhat later, as has, indeed, to some extent been done, but of
course at the risk of a diminished catch. In the long run beneficial
results doubtless will follow. But the plan most applicable to both
Northern and Southern Seal-capture would be the insistence of the
simple rule of _sparing the breeding females whenever possible_. If
our merchants at home would take the matter in hand, and, but for
a few years, refuse to receive female skins, the sealers would be
practically forced, and in fact find it to their benefit, to look to
their interests from a more humane point of view.
JAMES MURIE.
ORDER CETACEA.--WHALES.
Whales--Vulgar Notions--Characteristics External and
Internal--Larynx--Tail--Skeleton--Classification--THE
TOOTHED WHALES--ZEUGLODONS--SQUALODONS--PHOCODONS--RIVER
DOLPHINS--SUSU, OR GANGETIC
DOLPHIN--Description--Habits--Teeth--INIA--PONTOPORIA--ZIPHIOID
WHALES--CUVIER’S WHALE--VAN BENEDEN’S WHALE--SOWERBY’S WHALE--NEW
ZEALAND BERARDIUS--BOTTLEHEAD, OR COMMON BEAKED WHALE--SPERM WHALES,
OR CACHALOTS--SPERM WHALE--Description--Range--Fishery--Incidents of
the Chase--Habits--Harpooned--Treatment of the Carcass--SHORT-HEADED
WHALE, OR SNUB-NOSED CACHALOT--DOLPHINS--CAAING, OR PILOT
WHALE--RISSO’S GRAMPUS--COMMON PORPOISE--KILLER WHALE, OR
ORCA--Ferocity--TRUE DOLPHINS--COMMON DOLPHIN--BOTTLE-NOSE
DOLPHIN--WHITE WHALE--NARWHAL--THE WHALEBONE
WHALES--Whalebone--GREENLAND, OR RIGHT WHALE--BISCAY WHALE--JAPAN
WHALE--CAPE WHALE--SOUTH PACIFIC WHALE--Description of the Greenland
Whale--Their Food and Mode of Feeding--Habits--Hunting--Treatment
of Carcass--HUMP-BACKED WHALES--FIN WHALES, OR RORQUALS--SIBBALD’S
RORQUAL--SULPHUR-BOTTOM WHALE--COMMON RORQUAL, OR RAZOR-BACK--LESSER
RORQUAL--Concluding Remarks.
[Illustration: STOMACH OF PILOT WHALE. (_After Murie._)
_œ_, œsophagus, or gullet; _b_, bile duct; _i_, intestine; 1, 1*,
2, 3, 4, represent the various chambers, the arrows denoting the
direction food takes in passing onwards.]
[Illustration: UPPER SURFACE OF THE BRAIN OF THE PORPOISE.
(_After Leuret and Gratiolet._)]
The Whales form one of the most extraordinary groups of the Mammalia,
for they are warm-blooded, air-breathers, and sucklers of their
young, and are most strangely adapted for life in a watery element.
Oddly enough the term “Fish” is still applied to them by the whalers,
though they have nothing in common with these creatures save a certain
similitude in shape. The vulgar notion of a Whale is an enormous
creature with an extremely capacious mouth, but the fact is that many
of the Cetacea are of relatively moderate dimensions, though doubtless,
on the other hand, the magnitude of some is perfectly amazing. Thus,
in size they are variable as a group, a range of from five or six
feet (equal to the stature of man) to seventy or eighty feet giving
sufficiently wide limits. With certain exceptions, notwithstanding
length, an average-sized Whale by no means conveys to the eye the same
idea of vastness, say for instance, as does an Elephant. The reason
is that most Cetaceans are of a club shape, the compact cylindrical
body and long narrow tapering tail reducing the idea of size. The
head is in such continuity with the body that of neck there seems
nothing. In some there are upright fleshy back fins; in others these
are wanting. The gristly caudal fin is horizontal and not upright
or rayed like a fish’s. The body is smooth and devoid of hair. The
eye is remarkably small and without eyelashes, and the ear orifice
is so diminutive as to seem deficient. The head is either rounded,
massive, or has a long snout. There are no hind limbs, and only in
the enormous Whalebone Whales have the rudiments of any been found.
Small pelvic bones, however, are present, embedded in the flesh at the
setting-on of the tail. The fore-limbs, which are ordinarily termed
flippers, have the usual bones extremely broadened and flattened; the
free part--equivalent to the hand--being encased in a rigid or stiff
nailless membrane; and in a few instances the phalanges are exceedingly
numerous, producing a long-fingered peculiarity met with in no other
Mammal. The two mammæ adjoin the pelvic bones, the nipples being sunk
in slits. In one section only, the Mysticete, is the mouth very large.
In them great plates of the so-called whalebone, a horny substance,
occupy the place of teeth. In another section, the Denticete, with
moderate-sized mouth, teeth are present in few or greater numbers.
These are implanted in simple sockets without successors--_i.e._,
there is no milk and adult dentition as in the foregoing orders.
The tongue cannot be thrust out. The gullet is narrow in some, and
wider in others, but the stomach in all is peculiar, and composed of
three or more chambers with narrow passages between; in this respect
corresponding to that of Sheep and cattle. The intestines are long,
glandular, and full of little pouches. There is no gall-bladder. The
brain is of considerable calibre, globular, and remarkably convoluted.
The heart is distinguished only for great size, and the blood-vessels
are exceedingly capacious and numerous. But what is remarkable in
the vascular system is a great mass composed of enormous numbers of
minute tubes, forming a so-called _rete mirabile_, like that formerly
described in the Lemurs. It is situated within the body along the
inside of the spine. This, in the Whales, has been supposed to be a
respiratory provision to enable them to remain long submerged; but
I have shown elsewhere that its connection with the glands of the
lymphatic system may render it functionally subservient to nutrition
and purification of the blood. The lungs are large, but the most
extraordinary features are the larynx and nasal passages. The nostrils,
often a single crescentic aperture, open right on the top of the head,
except in the Sperm Whale, and not in front as in all other Mammalia.
In some there are small pouches near the orifice or blowhole of
uncertain use. In front of the larynx of man we all know there is an
elastic lid, the epiglottis, which folds over and protects the passage
as food is swallowed. The side cartilages constitute the walls of the
organ of voice, and protect the vocal cords. Now, in the comparatively
voiceless Whale the cartilages including the epiglottis form a long
rigid cylindrical tube which is thrust up the passage at the back of
the palate in continuity with the blowhole. It is there held in place
by a muscular ring. With the larynx thus retained bolt upright, and the
blowhole meanwhile being compressed or closed, the Cetacean is enabled
to swallow food under water without the latter entering the lungs.
Respiration, “blowing” or “spouting,” takes place at intervals as the
animal reaches the surface, and the volume of air thrown up along with
surrounding moisture and condensed vapour in some rises in a great
jet. The flesh of the body terminates in long cords of tendon running
to the tip of the tail. These tendons, like a telegraphic cable, bound
together in the smallest compass, are moved by the enormous fleshy
masses of the body, and thus their vast force is conveyed to the
caudal appendage, whose great power as a propelling agent (and even a
destructive one) enables the Whales to be truly roamers of the sea.
Save the tail and flippers, the body is covered by a dense layer of
fat, the blubber. In the skeleton the neck-bones are often soldered
into one or two separate pieces, rigidity being needful in front,
while the remaining vertebræ, tapering to exceedingly small bones
in the tail, are each separated by thick elastic fibro-cartilaginous
cushions, thus giving great flexibility behind. The breast-bone is
often in a single flat piece. The skull is greatly modified and by
no means uniform throughout the group. Among the Dolphins and others
(Delphinidæ) it is strangely distorted, so that the one side does not
agree with the other. The upper jaw-bones (_maxillæ_) and the pair of
bones above and between them (_premaxillæ_) are unusually produced,
and this production in front, with corresponding extension of lower
jaw, gives a lengthened facial region and snout accordingly. The bones
surrounding the occiput and brain-pan are directed upwards, the former
occasionally forming a great horseshoe crest. The bony nasal passages
instead of coming forward lead nearly direct upwards towards the summit
of the cranium, nasal bones themselves being all but absent. The orbits
are often small and open behind. Curiously enough, though deficient in
ears, the interior tiny ear-bones of other Mammals are in the Whales
great massive structures and exceedingly dense, so much so that they
are frequently preserved fossil when other osseous structures are
destroyed.
[Illustration: INTERIOR VIEW OF LARYNX OF RISSO’S GRAMPUS. (_After
Murie._)
_Ep_, epiglottis; _vc_, vocal cord; _s_, sac; _c_, cartilage; _gl_,
gland; _tr_, trachea. The arrows show direction of air-currents in
ingress and egress.]
[Illustration: SKELETON OF SPERM WHALE. (_After Flower._)
_s_, Spermaceti Cavity; _n_, Nasal Passage, in dotted line; _b_,
Blowhole.]
Cetacea have been a troublesome group to unravel, being ocean-dwellers,
and many of them huge brutes. To study them in the live state has been
difficult, and their carcases when captured or stranded on shore are as
unmanageable for purposes of examination. As to their classification
the two sub-orders--Denticete, Toothed Whales, and Mysticete, Whalebone
Whales--are universally accepted. As regards the families, the main
groups are tolerably well agreed upon, though differently named by
authorities. Among the sub-families, the genera and the species,
there is less unanimity. The grouping of the living forms proposed by
Professor Flower is in Great Britain more frequently adopted, while
MM. Gervais and Van Beneden, in their great work on “Osteographie des
Cétacés,” have collated the living and fossil forms. Some species and
genera of Whales are restricted within given areas, as are the Seals,
but of the habitat of many others in truth so little is known that no
defined limit can be assigned. The great majority are migratory; some
are gregarious, others more solitary in disposition. A few are quite
fluviatile; but most are found in the high seas. Following the above
primary divisions, we give precedence to
THE TOOTHED WHALES (DENTICETE).
Except the possession of teeth, no other available common character
need here be given.
THE SEAL-TOOTHED WHALES (PHOCODONTIA OR ZEUGLODONTIA).
[Illustration: RESTORATION OF SKULL (A), AND TOOTH (B) OF
ZEUGLODON. (_After Gaudry._)]
We begin with these, as they are supposed by some authorities to
be intermediate between the Seals and Whales. This extinct family,
judging from the various mutilated remains found, comprised several
different genera. The most notable of these are Zeuglodon, Squalodon,
and Phocodon. The ZEUGLODONS may have attained a length of
fifty or sixty feet. Their vertebral column was cetacean in character,
but the neck-bones were separate, though considerably flattened from
before backwards. Some assert that their skull bore resemblances to
that of the Seals in several respects. Their brain-cavity undoubtedly
was remarkably small, and relatively less than that of known Whales;
but the supposed Seal-like skull structure is open to question. The
teeth were of two kinds: those in front being conical, pointed, and
lengthened; and those behind laterally compressed, serrate, and
double-rooted. The dental formula is stated to have been--Incisors,
(3-3)/(3-3); canines, (1-1)/(1-1); molars, (5-5)/(5-5) = 36. Hind
limbs may have been absent, but the fore limbs suggest rather
than furnish precise data showing approximation to the Seals. The
SQUALODONS are known chiefly from the skull, which, as a
whole, has strong resemblances to those of the curious Amazon Dolphins,
called Inia and Pontoporia, but the dentition, however, agrees rather
with that of the Dolphin of the Ganges, _Platanista_. They possessed a
long, narrow snout, but no special crest on the summit of the head, and
the blow-holes were situate as in the foregoing three last-mentioned
living genera. Van Beneden has given the following formula of the
dentition:--Incisors, (3-3)/(3-3); canines, (1-1)/(1-1); molars,
(11-11)/(11-11) = 60. Their teeth in most respects resembled those
of the Zeuglodons. Much less is known of the PHOCODONS, our
information regarding them being chiefly derived from the teeth. These
latter were not unlike the rearmost of those of the Zeuglodons and
Squalodons. The Zeuglodons have been found in the Eocene and Miocene
strata of North America. The first remains from Alabama were considered
by Dr. Harlan to be those of an enormous reptile (_Basilosaurus_),
but Professor Owen proved their Mammalian character from the teeth
being implanted in distinct sockets. The Squalodons and the Phocodons
have not only been found in the United States, but in Australia, and
in France, Belgium, Austria, Italy, and England. Of course nothing
is known respecting their habits other than what may be legitimately
inferred from their skeletal peculiarities. To all intents and
purposes, so far as we know, the balance lies in favour of their having
had the habits of Whales. They may have been river-frequenters, and
judging from the dentition their food would be similar to that of the
Ganges and Amazon Dolphins.
THE RIVER DOLPHINS (PLATANISTIDÆ).
Three living forms come under this heading, which, however, barely
present such characters in common as to render them a compact group;
and some authorities even incline to regard them as representative of
sub-families. As in the Seal-toothed Whales their neck vertebra are
separate.
[Illustration: SIDE (A) AND UPPER (B) VIEWS OF SKULL; (C) REARWARD
AND (D) FORWARD TOOTH OF YOUNG OF GANGETIC DOLPHIN. (_After
Gervais and Van Beneden._)]
THE SUSU, OR GANGETIC DOLPHIN.[231]--This remarkable Cetacean
is never found in the salt water, or at best only in the brackish water
of the Sunderbunds; its habitat being the rivers Ganges and Indus from
their mouths upwards, and their various tributaries almost to the
mountain ranges in the north. Specimens have been got at least 1,000
miles beyond Calcutta. It measures from six to twelve feet in length,
and in colour is entirely sooty black. Its long body has a moderate
girth, and just behind the middle of the back there is a slight
elevation which can barely be called a fin. The tail is broadish; the
flippers are short, very broad, fan-shaped, and not pointed as in most
Whales. The head is globular, with a long, narrow, spoon-shaped snout.
The opening of the blow-hole, unlike that of other Whales, excepting
the Inia, is not transverse, but a single longitudinal slit. The eye
externally, situated above the angle of the mouth, is so diminutive
as barely to be visible. We may compare the Susu to the Mole in this
respect, for in an adult eight feet long the whole of the eyeball is no
bigger than a pea in size. Small though this eye is, nevertheless it
is perfect in lens and humours, &c. The ear-orifice behind the latter
may be compared to a pin-hole. The narrow rostrum of the upper and of
the lower jaw is implanted with a series of teeth, more pointed and
conical in front, and narrower and laterally flattened in those behind.
In the young animal the difference between the anterior and the
posterior teeth is exceedingly marked in size, the former being very
long, the latter very short, while as age advances quite the reverse
is the case. The back teeth also wear down very considerably in the
crown, and increase in breadth in root-substance; indeed, as Dr. J.
Anderson has shown, the true dental material is worn away, and finally
nothing but bone is left. The head of the male is about two-thirds
the length of that of the female, and in both its point is slightly
upturned. The apparently rounded skull behind the snout has broad thick
zygomatic arches, and above and in front of these the cheek-bones
(_maxillæ_) each send forwards and inwards a great roughened sheet of
bone or crest, which forms a kind of open helmet. In the large hollow
between these bony plates, and somewhat behind, are situated the nasal
orifices, which are slightly awry.
[Illustration: GANGETIC DOLPHIN.]
[Illustration: FLIPPER OF GANGETIC DOLPHIN.]
The Susu frequents the deep reaches and creeks of the river,
occasionally coming to the surface to blow, and although often heard
are but seldom captured. Ordinarily their movements are slow, but
at times they seem exceedingly active. Their food is chiefly fish,
shrimps, &c., which they grovel for among the mud, something like
Pigs wallowing in the mire. Grass, rice, and shells have been found
in their stomachs, but Dr. Anderson has clearly shown that they are
not vegetable feeders, for in the rainy season, when great tracts of
land are under water, these animals pursue the fish right into the
submerged “paddy-fields,” and the grass is thus most probably swallowed
with their prey. The Hindoos have religious superstitions concerning
the Susu. It certainly is one of the oldest known Cetaceans, since
Pliny and Ælian both allude to it. It has been supposed that the kind
which inhabits the Indus was a separate species, but this error has
doubtless arisen from the great difference in size of the skulls of the
two sexes. This animal must be all but blind, the optic nerve being
no thicker than a thread; but the fact of its living habitually in
muddy water renders sight less necessary than it otherwise might be.
Its peculiar dentition, so like that of the ancient Squalodons in many
respects, is of exceeding interest. The following is the dental formula
of one specimen, (27-28)/(30-32) = 117. The broad roots of the rearmost
teeth are usually grooved, and this gives them a deceptive appearance
of possessing more than one fang; moreover, differing as the teeth do
front and rearwards, still distinctions as to incisors, canines, and
molars can hardly be said to exist.
THE INIA, OR AMAZON DOLPHIN,[232] is another of the remarkable
fresh-water forms. The former name is that given to it by the Indian
tribes of Bolivia. It ranges from the mouth of the river up the whole
of its affluents of any magnitude, 2,000 miles from the sea. Mr. Bates,
in his “Journey on the Amazon,” tells us that when it rises the top
of the head is the part first seen; it then blows and immediately
afterwards dips head downwards, its back curving over, exposing
successively the whole dorsal ridge with its fin. It seems thus to
pitch heels over head, but does not show the tail fin. It generally
goes in pairs. Exceedingly numerous throughout the Amazons, it is
nowhere more plentiful than in the shoaly water at the mouth of the
Tocantins, especially in the dry season. The Indians have a story that
the “Bouto,” as they also call this creature, “once had the habit of
assuming the shape of a beautiful woman, with hair hanging loose to her
heels, and walking ashore at nights in the streets of Ega, to entice
the young men down to the water. If any one was so much smitten as to
follow her to the water-side, she grasped her victim round the waist
and plunged beneath the waves with a triumphant cry.” It is held in
veneration, and on this account the Indians can hardly be induced to
harpoon it. They have a superstition that blindness results from the
use of its oil (which nevertheless is excellent for lamps), and though
Mr. Bates prevailed upon an Indian to capture one, the fellow repented
of his deed the day afterwards, declaring that his luck had there and
then forsaken him. This animal is seven or eight feet long. Its colour
commonly is bluish above, passing into a pale flesh-colour beneath,
the tail and flippers being bluish, but the tints vary considerably,
and even differ with age and season. The head is furnished with a long
beak. There is a kind of keel-shaped dorsal fin, and the flippers are
of fair size, broadish and tapering, thus differing from those of the
Susu. The skull has a certain resemblance to that of the Gangetic
Dolphin, but without the great cheek-crests peculiar to the latter,
besides other minor differences. In both jaws there is a long series
of stout conical teeth of a pretty uniform size. These vary in number
in different specimens, as the following formulæ in two separate
individuals show (26-26)/(25-27) = 104; (34-32)/(33-32) = 131. The
muzzle of the young is hairy; while both the eye and the ear-hole are
much better marked than in the Susu. It is a fish-eater, and the mother
exhibits great affection and devotedness towards her young.
THE PONTOPORIA.[233]--Like Inia this is a South American form,
and is now known to inhabit the mouth of the La Plata and other rivers
entering into the Atlantic on the coasts of the Argentine Republic and
Patagonia. But, unlike the two preceding forms, it is not confined to
the rivers, for it ranges along the sea-coast. The very few specimens
met with show it to be a small animal, not more than four feet long,
of a blackish tint, pale beneath, with a white streak along each side
from behind the blow-hole. It has an unusually long narrow beak, but
not such a prominent head as in the two others. This animal has a
well-marked triangular dorsal fin, and the fore-flipper is somewhat
fan-shaped and broadish, and not pointed as in the Inia. The crestless
skull has characters intermediate between the river Dolphins and
the marine Dolphins to be described farther on. The teeth are small
and very numerous, somewhat fewer in the young animal, conical in
shape, with a swollen ring round their base. The dental formula is as
follows:--(53-53)/(53-53) = 212 or (57-57)/(54-54) = 222.
THE ZIPHIOID WHALES (ZIPHIIDÆ).
These singular Whales form a very compact group, closely united
by common attributes, but they are readily separated by definite
characters from others. Until the beginning of the present century, the
Bottlehead (or Butzkopf) was that only known. Since then, at irregular
intervals, chiefly solitary individuals have been caught or stranded
in various parts of the world; but even now the numbers coming under
observation have been few. Their apparent comparative rarity in the
present day is in great contrast with the frequent discovery of their
remains in the Norfolk Crag formations, where fragments, principally
of their dense solid beaks, show that they must have been at a long
distant period exceedingly numerous. On these grounds the supposition
has been expressed that the present paucity of forms is indicative of
a survival of an ancient family that once played an important part in
Nature. The living forms range from fifteen to thirty feet in length,
but their ocean habits are extremely obscure. Their common characters
are long narrow beaks, elevated heads, a small but well-marked dorsal
fin placed behind the middle of the back, short flippers with rounded
extremity, a pair of short throat-furrows of a V-shape (point in
front), a single somewhat crescentic blow-hole, placed crosswise in the
middle of the head, absence or only rudiments of teeth in the upper
jaws, and one or two pairs of very peculiar teeth, variable in size, in
the lower jaws, along with certain other peculiarities of the skull. We
shall refer but to a few of the group.
Of the genus _Ziphius_ we may admit CUVIER’S WHALE[234] and
VAN BENEDEN’S WHALE.[235] Their size appears to vary from
sixteen to twenty-four feet, and their colour is said to be steel-grey,
with irregular white body streaks, the abdomen also being whitish.
The head is less prominent than in the Bottlehead, and the snout is a
trifle shorter, with the lower jaw slightly upturned, fuller than the
upper, and furnished with two teeth at the tip. The flippers are short
and somewhat pointed, and the dorsal fin is situated well behind, and
not very large. There is a deep hollow at the base of the rostrum or
beak, over which the skull rises crest-like from behind forwards. The
genus _Ziphius_ was originally based on a supposed fossil skull from
near the mouth of the Rhone; living species, however, have been since
recorded, and of one from South America Burmeister gives a detailed
notice under the name of _Epiodon australis_; still it is doubtful
whether this is not one of the two above-mentioned animals.
[Illustration: HEAD OF MESOPLODON. (_After Andrews._)]
SOWERBY’S WHALE[236] is representative of the genus
_Mesoplodon_. This animal is black above, white below, and the sides
marked with wriggly white streaks. The small dorsal fin is situated
well back, the flippers are small and narrow, the head is rather
low, sloping towards the beak, and the upper jaw is shorter than the
under. It also has two teeth in the lower, and none in the upper jaw.
Thus externally it bears strong resemblance to Cuvier’s Whale, but it
differs in the slender beak, without a hollow at its base. Sowerby’s
Whale is interesting from having been first obtained in 1800 off the
Elgin Coast, and described by Mr. Sowerby as the Two-toothed Cachalot
(_Physeter bidens_). The genus _Mesoplodon_ has since given rise to
considerable discussion, various names being assigned to it. Professor
Flower points out that of the various Ziphioid Whales obtained on
British coasts, France, the Cape, and New Zealand, described as
different genera, &c., he recognises seven species of _Mesoplodon_,
Sowerby’s Whale being the type, and the others differing chiefly in
the form of the teeth. Another of this curious family is the NEW
ZEALAND BERARDIUS,[237] of which some four specimens only are
known to science. Dr. Julius Haast records the capture of one near
Canterbury, New Zealand, in 1868, which animal was 30½ feet long,
velvety black, with greyish belly. One of the observers who saw the
creature alive stated that it protruded its teeth--a remarkable fact
if true. In its stomach were found half a bushel of the horny beaks
of a species of Octopus. Professor Flower has described its skeleton,
and affirms that it is truly ziphioid in character, but on the whole
approaches nearer to the true Dolphins; whereas the Bottlehead is
modified in the direction of the Sperm Whales. THE BOTTLEHEAD, OR
COMMON BEAKED WHALE,[238] is a constant visitor to the coasts of
Britain, many instances having been recorded of its capture, and one
classical example came under the scalpel of the celebrated anatomist
John Hunter. It inhabits the breadth of the North Atlantic, and
according to Eschricht very probably spends the summer far north in the
Polar Sea, and migrates southwards towards autumn or winter. Dr. R.
Brown regards it as rare in the Greenland Seas, three or four, however,
being occasionally seen at the mouth of Davis Strait. On the French
and Scandinavian coasts small herds have sometimes run ashore. The
female gives birth to a single young one in autumn. They feed chiefly
on cuttle-fish, but also upon soft-bodied Trepangs (_Holothuria_). It
ranges from twenty to forty feet in length, according to age and sex,
and is of a uniform blackish hue, lighter beneath, but not white. The
skull is most peculiar in having two crests at the occiput, of most
unequal size and figure, and the cheek-bones at the root of the beak
raised into a pair of huge elevations. The upper jaw is toothless, and
the lower jaw has only two or three small concealed teeth. The neck
vertebræ are united; and moreover the stomach is remarkable even among
Cetacea for the number of chambers it contains, there being some six or
seven divisions.
THE SPERM WHALES, OR CACHALOTS (PHYSETERIDÆ).
This family includes but two forms: the valuable Sperm Whale
(_Physeter_) and the Short-headed Whale (_Kogia_). They are unlike in
many respects, but they agree in having no teeth, or only rudimentary
ones in the upper jaw, while the lower jaw is provided with a series of
conical teeth. The dorsal fin is small, either hump-like or high and
falcate; the flippers are very short, and situated along with the small
eye near the angle of the great mouth. The neck vertebræ are fused
together. The upper surface of the broad shoe-shaped skull has a large
basin-like cavity, wherein in the soft parts the material known as
spermaceti is lodged. The blow-hole is single, and in the case of the
Sperm Whale is situated quite in front, but is placed farther back in
the Kogia. In both, however, it is somewhat of an _f_-shape obliquely
placed, the left extremity being much wider than the right.
[Illustration: TOOTH OF THE SPERM WHALE.]
[Illustration: SPERM WHALE.]
THE SPERM WHALE, OR CACHALOT.[239]--Next to the Greenland
Whale the Cachalot is by far the most important animal of the Whale
tribe in a commercial point of view. A rare interest, moreover, is
attached to it from the daring deeds and hair-breadth escapes of the
whalers pursuing it, inasmuch as in certain cases it is among the
fiercest of the Cetacea. At times it not only attacks boats and their
crews in pursuit of it, but there are also well-authenticated instances
of ships themselves being assailed and sunk by this powerful monster
of the deep. It attains a size varying from forty to seventy feet, the
average of old males being about sixty feet, while the females are much
smaller. It is black above, lighter on the sides, and silvery-grey on
the belly parts. Its head is of enormous proportions, forming nearly
half the bulk of the animal. The snout is extraordinarily dilated and
terminates abruptly; the upper jaw quite overhangs the lower, and the
bones of the latter are united close together for a long distance, and
are furnished with from twenty to thirty teeth on each side. As shown
in the woodcut, each tooth is conical and slightly curved, hollow at
the base, but elsewhere it is dense and solid. When the lower jaw is
closed the teeth fit into hollows in the upper lips, in this respect
somewhat resembling what takes place in the Crocodile’s mouth; but
besides the remarkable lower jaw, the Sperm Whale’s skull rivets
attention from the extensive basin-shaped spermaceti reservoir already
alluded to. The throat is very large as compared with that of the
Greenland Whale. It was believed that there were several species of
Cachalot, but only one is now acknowledged, the Kogia really belonging
to a different genus. The Sperm Whale is seldom found in inland waters,
but is met with in all the oceans, from the Polar to the Antarctic,
though it chiefly inhabits the tropical or sub-tropical seas. Among
the favourite resorts of the whalers are the coasts of New Guinea and
adjacent parts, Australia, New Zealand, and several of the Polynesian
islands, the coasts of Peru, Chili, and California, the Japanese and
Chinese waters, the Molucca group, and the mouth of the Persian Gulf.
Its appearance in the Atlantic has of late years been irregular and
seldom, though at one time it was of tolerably frequent occurrence
in the South Atlantic and American coasts, and near the Bahamas. Its
steady pursuit for a long series of years has greatly thinned its
numbers. About 1770 the Americans, and a few years later the British,
in small ships of 100 tons and over, established the Sperm Whale
Fishery with very moderate success. Before 1780 the British Government
issued bounties to encourage the trade, and this led to the sending
out of larger vessels, while Mr. Enderby, a London merchant, pushed
the fishery into the far-distant shores of the Pacific. The vessels,
of much larger tonnage and better manned, were absent for two or
three years, and the scenes of the chase, they say, at times almost
defied description. Surgeon Beale’s incident, though tolerably well
known, is worth notice. On the coast of Japan, in 1832, some three
boats pursued a Whale all day long. By a dexterous move the animal
was at last lanced, when it spouted blood, suddenly descended about
forty fathoms, and as quickly rose and dashed the boat into the air in
fragments. The men clung to the oars and broken wood, and, in spite of
the vicinity of Sharks and the Whale itself, were saved by the other
boats, the crews of which avenged themselves by ultimately killing the
Whale. Of fighting Whales there are numbers of stories, that of one old
male, familiarly known as “New Zealand Tom,” being still traditionally
recounted in the forecastle. In 1804 the _Adonis_ and several other
ships simultaneously attacked the fellow, who destroyed some nine
boats before breakfast, but in the end was captured, when a host of
harpoons were found in its body. There can be no doubt that the Sperm
Whale is a migratory animal, though its migrations are by no means
clearly understood. It is a gregarious creature, “schools” of a dozen
to fifty or sixty being occasionally met with. At other times great
fellows are found here and there on lonely pilgrimages, while still at
other times a few together will be seen _en route_ to fresh feeding
grounds. Adult females, or those with young in their company, evince
a strong affection for each other, and when one is killed or sustains
injury, parents or companions hover about and even render assistance.
The whalers take advantage of this trait, and often kill a number ere
the others make off. When, however, a company of young male Whales are
found, and one is attacked, little love or interest in each other’s
welfare is manifested, every one rushing off helter-skelter in all
directions, to the whaler’s chagrin. The old “bulls,” on the other
hand, are more sedate and less easily frightened, and unless roused by
injury to retaliate on their pursuers are more readily harpooned. The
Sperm Whale is easily known from all others, even at a great distance,
from the regularity of its blowing and the manner in which it throws up
a volume of vapour obliquely forwards. It traverses the ocean surface
in a steady methodical manner, at the rate of four or five miles an
hour, its great head or hump-like back occasionally appearing above
water. It will remain on the surface from ten to fifteen minutes, and
then will descend, staying below an hour or more, but the females and
young remain up and descend at more frequent intervals. At times,
instead of quietly swimming on the surface, they proceed more quickly
by a kind of lunging motion, the head being thrust well out of the
water, a mass of spray, technically called “white water,” accompanying
this mode of progression. Occasionally they spring headlong out of
the sea (“breaching”), or violently beat the surface with their tails
(“lobtailing”), or at other times dash about in a variety of attitudes.
Sometimes they move their fins as if feeling around for enemies, or
throw their bodies awry, bringing the mouth well to the surface. It is
pretty certain that Cuttle-fish form a large proportion of their food,
though there is reason to believe that they do not despise fish and
other marine creatures. It is still a moot point how they feed, and to
what use they put their teeth. Some assert that in the depths the under
jaw is lowered, and the glistening pearly teeth fully shown; attracted
by the latter, its prey approach and the trap is closed. Blindness at
times supervenes. Still more curious are instances where the lower jaw
is twisted like a shepherd’s crook, and strange to say, notwithstanding
this deformity, these Whales seem fat and hearty--this fact giving
rise to much speculation whether such malformation has arisen from
fighting and distortion of the jaw in youth, or from other causes not
yet ascertained. The Sperm Whale has its enemies, the Thresher Shark
leaping on it and attacking it from above, while the daring Killer
Whale (_Orca_) assaults it from below. The female, it is said, breeds
at all seasons, producing one, but occasionally two, at a time.
The double-bowed whale-boats are manned by six men, and when they
approach the Whale one steers aft with an oar while the harpooner plies
his craft. As soon as it is struck the rowers “back” away. Meanwhile
the creature dives, carrying harpoon and line, or rolls rapidly round
coiling the rope on its body. The other boats approach, and as it
rises harpoons and lances are dexterously used, and as the blood
escapes in volumes, despite its vast efforts the creature succumbs.
Immediately after its death the boats are made fast to the carcass,
and the ship reached as circumstances best permit. Secured alongside,
a man descends, cuts a hole behind the head, inserts a hook, often
under most dangerous conditions, especially if the sea is rough. The
fat or blubber is cut by sharp spades in a long spiral strip, and
pulleys applied, and these skin and blubber strips, termed the “blanket
pieces,” are thereupon hove on deck. The carcass afterwards is rolled
round and the opposite side similarly treated. The great head meantime
is cut off, and floated astern until the trunk is deprived of its
blubber. The head is then opened from above, and among the coarse fat
and blubber of the forehead--the so-called “case”--is a fluid oily
matter, the spermaceti. This substance is handed up in bucketfuls, and
preserved in casks. On its removal the wedge-shaped oily and fibrous
head-piece, the “junk,” is next secured; head and trunk are then sent
adrift. Then follows the “trying out,” that is, boiling the fatty
masses and extracting the oil, which operation is done in furnaces, the
scraps of fat mainly serving as fuel. Finally, the oil and head matter
are casked up, and a fresh look-out from the masthead is kept for more
Whales. The crow’s nest is a large barrel on the cross-trees, where
a watcher is stationed during the whole voyage. No sooner is a Whale
spied than the shout, “There she blows!” or, as the Americans have it,
“There she spouts!” is replied to from the deck by a hurried rush to
the boats, for each seaman’s kit and provisions are beforehand ready
prepared in a bundle, and before a few minutes have passed, the hardy
mariners are on their way towards their gigantic spoil. Sperm oil, we
need hardly say, is exceedingly valuable. The quantity obtained between
1835 and 1872 by the Americans alone is reckoned at 3,671,772 barrels,
and the wholesale price has varied during these years from four to ten
shillings per gallon.
THE SHORT-HEADED WHALE, OR SNUB-NOSED CACHALOT.[240]--Under
this name, and possibly also that of Gray’s Kogia,[241] an animal
has been described which, far smaller in size and in many respects
differing from the Sperm Whale, nevertheless is more closely allied to
it than to any other of the Cetacea. Whether the two names belong to
different or the same species may be left open for the present. At all
events, specimens have been obtained at the Cape of Good Hope, the East
Indies, and Australia, which so closely resemble each other as probably
to belong to one and the same species. This animal measures from six to
ten feet in length, and is almost Porpoise-like in general appearance.
It has a well-marked dorsal fin behind the middle of the body, short
flippers, and the snout is said to be turned up with a margin somewhat
like a Pig’s. The upper surface of the body is black, and the under
parts have a tinge of yellow or light flesh-colour. The few specimens
hitherto obtained afford no information regarding its habits. The
peculiar construction of its skull, short, broad, distorted, with a
bony division in the spermaceti cavity and other skeletal characters,
give it an interest as being an intermediate form between the Cachalot
and the Dolphins proper.
THE DOLPHINS (DELPHINIDÆ).
This group possesses considerable diversity in outward form, in
skeletal characters, and dentition; nay more, many of the genera blend
into each other. The Narwhal by its peculiar teeth, and the White
Whale by its colour, besides some few other points, stand apart. The
Porpoise and the Neomeris agree in teeth and skull; the Killer Whales
are distinguished by their broad flippers; the Pilot Whales, on the
contrary, by the extreme length and narrowness of their flippers;
the Dolphins proper have long narrow beaks and numerous teeth; while
several other genera unite characters so that it is difficult to define
where one commences and another ends. Nearly all have dorsal fins.
Excepting in the Narwhal, numerous teeth exist in both jaws. The lower
jaws are united only for a short distance, and there is no distinct
skull crest behind the nasal orifice, while the neck vertebræ in most
are soldered together. The difficulty in giving the natural sequence,
the genera, and species of this group, for reasons aforesaid, leads us
to commence with one which has a singular prominence in the forehead,
composed of a soft blubbery material intermingled with strong fibres,
one might say, a kind of modified spermaceti substance.
[Illustration: CAAING, OR PILOT WHALE.]
THE CAAING, OR PILOT WHALE, OR DEDUCTOR,[242] is one of the
best known Whales that frequent the British coasts, herds of hundreds
having often been run ashore in the Shetlands, Orkneys, and even in
the Firth of Forth. Adults average from sixteen to twenty-five feet
in length, are of a jet-black colour, but lighter or whitish on the
abdomen. The body is cylindrical, tapering to the tail; the dorsal fin
is high, placed at the middle of the back; the flippers are unusually
long and narrow, and the fingers possess an unusually great number of
bones, as many as fourteen to the second digit. The head is quite
characteristic, having the form of a massive boss. The teeth are
somewhat numerous, namely, (24-24)/(24-24) = 96. When these Whales are
seen gambolling in the bays of the Scottish shores, the hardy fishermen
start in their boats and form a cordon seawards. Then by gunshots,
shouts, splashings, and throwing stones they drive them towards the
shore; and as the animals madly plunge to shallower water, pressing
through fear one over the other, the men dash into the water and
begin havoc with harpoons, scythes, spears, picks, or spades--indeed,
whatever weapon comes handiest. Thus numbers, from even fifty to as
many as two hundred, fall an easy prey. Such an encounter took place
in 1867 near Prestonpans on the Firth of Forth, when one Whale wounded
by harpoons struck seawards, hauling a boat and crew of twelve men
nearly as far as Inchkeith ere it succumbed. There may be more than one
species of this Whale, widely distributed, but whether or not, their
habits and general appearance have much in common.
A rather remarkable form is RISSO’S GRAMPUS,[243] inasmuch
as its colouring and marking are so variable, and in some cases so
characteristic; indeed, no two specimens yet obtained can be said to
be alike. The head is fuller and rounder than that of the Porpoise,
and its flippers longer and narrower--in these respects approaching
the Pilot Whale. The prevailing tint is grey, darker above, and under
parts paler, and in some there are a few indistinct and irregular
lighter-coloured bandings. In other examples, notably one obtained by
M. Risso in the Mediterranean, and by Professor Flower on the British
coast, the side of the body and even top of the head exhibited a mass
of intercrossing, wavy, scratched lines and spots of white and grey,
following no special pattern. It has been found both on the French and
English coasts in spring and summer, but is suspected to be migratory,
visiting Europe in summer, and proceeding to the African or possibly
the American continent towards winter. The variation in colour has
given rise to different specific names. Somewhat intermediate between
the foregoing and the Porpoises, are certain forms found on the Indian
coasts and even the Irrawaddy River; the genus _Orcella_, for example,
combining the head of the Pilot Whale with the body and flippers of the
Porpoise.
[Illustration: RISSO’S GRAMPUS. (_After Flower._)]
THE COMMON PORPOISE,[244] the _marsouin_ of the French or
_meerschwein_ of the Germans, is the most familiar Cetacean of the
British and adjoining coasts. Their average length is four or five
feet, though often more. The colour slightly varies with age and sex,
more usually a polished bluish-black tint on the upper parts, merging
into a pink or mottled grey or whitish below. The dorsal fin and
flippers are both of moderate dimensions. Their head is roundish, and
not so blunt or bomb-like as in the _Globiceps_, nor so sharp-nosed as
in the true Dolphin tribe. Its diminutive eye, no visible ear, tapering
body, and broad tail are all markedly Cetacean in character, so that,
though small, it gives a very good idea of the Whale tribe generally.
The semilunar transverse blow-hole as it rises to the surface slightly
opens, but in a tank no lofty jet of vapour is thrown up as is the
case with the large Whales at sea. In looking into the pink-coloured
mouth one sees above and below a row of small equal-sized simple teeth,
and a flat tongue which is not protrusible. The dental formula is
(20-20)/(20-20) = 80, or (26-26)/(26-26) = 104. In structural detail,
both internally and in the skeleton, it is a fair type of the group
Delphinidæ. Porpoises either of the common sort or species barely to be
distinguished from it have a tolerably wide distribution, being found
all over the Mediterranean, Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic regions.
They evidently migrate, as they appear in Davis Strait in the spring,
and stop there till November. They are true fish-feeders, and herd
in enormous numbers. A prettier sight can scarcely be conceived than
a large shoal frolicking, dashing, and springing in all manner of
fantastic curves with an amazing rapidity. Woe betide the “schools” of
Herrings, Mackerels, and Pilchards that are followed by these rapacious
creatures, which cause great havoc among them! They give birth to their
young about May. Mr. H. Lee, on Mr. Scott Siddons’ authority, relates
that in the surveying voyage of the _Herald_ the natives of Moreton Bay
entreated the seamen “not to shoot their tame Porpoises.” These crowded
lazily near the shore, and when a shoal of fish entered the bay the
people roused the Porpoises, which dashed among the fish, ate some, and
drove the rest ashore. Porpoise flesh, though no longer an article of
diet, was once held in high estimation, and even graced the royal table
as late as the time of “bluff King Hal.” Porpoise meat was generally
eaten with a kind of mint sauce, and porpoise pudding was not an
unusual dish during Lent as coming under the denomination of supposed
fish. “Porpoise leather” now in vogue is in reality the skin of the
White Whale.
[Illustration: SHOAL OF PORPOISES.]
[Illustration: KILLER WHALE, OR ORCA.]
[Illustration: BOTTLE-NOSE DOLPHIN. (_After Flower._)]
THE KILLER WHALE, OR ORCA,[245] is truly the terror of the
ocean. Not only Porpoises, White Whales, and Seals spring out of the
water and run ashore in fear of it, but the great Sperm Whale and the
Greenland Whale stand in deadly awe of its attack. It ranges in size
from eighteen to thirty feet long, and its fierceness and voracity are
unbounded, as is well shown in an example which came under Eschricht’s
observation. From the stomach of this individual he took thirteen
Porpoises and fourteen Seals, and the atrocious glutton had been choked
in the attempt to swallow a fifteenth! Hollböll saw a herd of White
Whales driven into a bay in Greenland where they were literally torn
to pieces by these voracious Sea-wolves. Scammon says that three or
four do not hesitate to grapple with the largest Baleen Whales; the
latter, often paralysed through fear, lie helpless and at their mercy.
The Killers, like a pack of hounds, cluster about the animal’s head,
“breach” over it, seize it by the lips, and haul the bleeding monster
under water; and should the victim open its mouth they eat its tongue.
In one instance he relates that a Californian Grey Whale and her young
were assaulted; the Orcas killed the latter, and sprang on the mother,
tearing away large pieces of flesh which they greedily devoured.
These brutes have been known to attack a white-painted herring-boat,
mistaking it for a Beluga; and it is stated that occasionally they
will boldly lay siege to Whales killed by the whalers, almost dragging
them perforce under water. Near some of the Pacific sealing-grounds
they continually swim about and swoop off the unwary young; even the
large male Sea Lions hastily retreat ashore and give these monsters
a wide berth. The Walrus also, with his powerful tusks, cannot keep
the Killers at bay, especially if young Morses are in the herd. The
cubs on such occasions will mount upon their mother’s back for refuge,
clinging for dear life; but the Orca, diving, comes suddenly up with
a spiteful thud, and the cub losing its balance falls in the water,
when in an instant it is seized by the remorseless Whales. These latter
do not restrict themselves in diet solely to their own or the Seal
tribe; for Scammon asserts that they even make marauding expeditions
up strong-flowing rivers in pursuit of the Salmon and other fishes,
a statement corroborated by observers on British coasts. The great
swiftness of these creatures is best realised by the fact that they
pursue and overtake the quick-swimming Dolphins, literally swallowing
them alive. They are not gregarious in the sense of being found in
large herds, but follow their prey in small squads. At times they
move rapidly near the surface, their great back-fins projecting, or
they tumble and roll about, even leaping out of the water and cutting
all manner of capers. They have an evenly-rounded head, blunter than
the Porpoise’s, the upper jaw a trifle longer than the lower. Their
flippers are broad and oval-shaped, and what renders them peculiar
and easily recognised is their greatly-lengthened dorsal fin, in some
species said to be equal to one-fifth of the whole length of the
animal. Though slightly varying in colour, they are usually glossy
black above, and white below, the tints sharply defined. Above the eye
is a white patch, and occasionally there is a greyish saddle mark on
their back. Their capacious mouth is provided with eleven or twelve
teeth on each side above and below, and each tooth is most powerful,
conical, and slightly recurved.
[Illustration: DOLPHINS PURSUING A BOAT.]
THE TRUE DOLPHINS, from which in fact the group _Delphinidæ_ takes
its origin, are associated in mythology and poetry to a considerable
extent. The car of Amphitrite drawn by these oceanic animals is well
known. The COMMON DOLPHIN[246] and the BOTTLE-NOSE DOLPHIN[247] of
British coasts are kinds familiar to fishermen and sailors, the
former evidently being that known to the ancients. Naturalists have
recognised many genera and numerous species of the Dolphin tribe, but
into these and their distinctions we shall not enter. If we take the
common Dolphin as a representative, it will be seen that the head has
a well-marked rostrum or beak, and an abruptly-rounded forehead; the
dorsal fin is high, and the flippers of moderate size. When adult they
average from six to eight feet in length. Their colour is black above
and brilliant white beneath; though many of the species of Dolphins
are parti-coloured, white predominating. The teeth vary in number from
forty to fifty on each side, above and below--that is, from 160 to 200
in all. They feed on fish, medusæ, and crustaceans; and they congregate
in great herds, never being seen alone. This species inhabits the North
Sea, the Atlantic, and the Mediterranean; but the different genera and
species of the Dolphins have a wide range over the seas of the warmer
and of the temperate zones; some even ascending rivers after their
prey. As a group their habits are considerably alike, and they are
all excessively playful and active, and seem to delight in gambolling
around vessels,
“Or dive below, or on the surface leap,
And spout the waves, and wanton in the deep.”
[Illustration: NARWHAL.]
THE WHITE WHALE, OR BELUGA.[248]--In September, 1877, a White
Whale nine feet and a half long, which had been captured on the coast
of Labrador, arrived at the Westminster Aquarium. Though not of the
largest size--for they attain a length of even sixteen feet--this
example nevertheless was characteristic. Symmetrical in form, creamy
white in colour, without dorsal fin, with short stumpy flippers, and
a bulging-rounded forehead, there could be no mistaking the species.
Unfortunately it lived but a few days, though Mr. Barnum was more
fortunate in keeping these creatures alive in a tank in his museum
at New York. The dental formula of the Beluga is (8-8)/(8-8)=32; or
(10-10)/(10-10)=40; the small conical teeth are implanted only in
the front of the jaws, and frequently drop out early in life. It is
abundant over a wide area of the northern regions, and is very partial
to ascending rivers after fish, for a long distance. Dall records
one taken 700 miles up the Yukon river, and Nordmann mentions that
it ascends the river Amoor. It is well known in the St. Lawrence and
Labrador coasts, as also in the White Sea, where there is a regular
White Whale fishery; but withal it is truly a Greenland Cetacean,
being found there all the year round. Like the Narwhal it is very
gregarious, sportive, and migrates in numbers, both sexes associating
in the droves. It is fearless and inquisitive, approaching the ship
with an easy roll, occasionally emitting a whistling sound; hence
seamen call them “sea canaries.” The female gives birth to a young
one in the spring months, and this is of a bluish-grey colour, paling
with age. Their docility and indeed intelligence, when captured, are
well illustrated by one in America, which was trained to draw a car
round the tank. It recognised its keeper, and allowed itself to be
freely handled. It would play with a Sturgeon and a small Shark as a
Cat would with a Mouse, but without injuring them; at other moments it
would splash about and toss stones with its mouth. The Greenlanders
dry their flesh for winter use, hoard their oil, and capture them by
nets at the entrance of the fjords and inlets whenever chance permits.
Five hundred or more every year are thus obtained. Dr. Rae says that
the Beluga is similarly caught by nets in the St. Lawrence. The Indians
also paint their canoes white and sail promiscuously among them,
harpooning betimes. Every part of the animal is valuable to the natives
of the north, the skin being manufactured into capital leather. A white
Porpoise-looking Whale visits Amoy and other southerly harbours of
China, but it is a true Dolphin (_D. sinensis_), and not a Beluga.
[Illustration: NARWHAL WITH THE TWO TUSKS DEVELOPED.]
THE NARWHAL, OR SEA-UNICORN.[249]--Of all Whales this is the
most unique on account of its so-called horn, or rather tusk, or,
still better, enormously-developed canine tooth. Most museums contain
examples of this extraordinary object, which seems like a solid rod of
ivory, tapers from root to tip, has a kind of striated spiral surface,
and is often from five to seven feet or more in length, thus being
the longest tooth in the Mammalia. The adult animals vary from ten
to sixteen feet long, and, like the Beluga, have a blunt short head,
no dorsal fin, and very small flippers. It is essentially a northern
form, inasmuch as it frequents the coasts of Greenland, Spitzbergen,
and Siberia, though occasionally met with off Scandinavia and Britain,
its favourite haunts, however, being 70° to 80° N. lat. It travels in
great herds, and Dr. R. Brown avers that he saw thousands in their
summer migrations following tusk to tusk and tail to tail like a
regiment of cavalry, and swimming with perfect, regular, undulating
movements. These herds are of both sexes. The Narwhals have grey backs,
mottled with black, the sides and belly paling downwards to white,
and equally spotted with grey or darker tint. The females are more
spotted than the males, the young are darker, but some animals are
much paler than others. The crescentic blowhole externally is single.
Occasionally they utter a gurgling noise. In the stomachs of captured
Narwhals, fish-bones, Crustaceans, Molluscs, and Cuttle-fish remains
have been found. They swim with great velocity, and are most active
creatures. They dash and sport about apparently with much glee, and
Scoresby says that in their playful moments they parry horns as if
fencing. He suggests that the horn may be used for spearing fish, as
he found a large flat Skate in the stomach of one. Others imagine that
it may be for stirring up food from the bottom; but it has been very
deftly remarked that the female would thus fare badly, seeing she is
destitute of the tooth in question. Fabricius’ view, that it was to
keep the ice-holes open during the winter, has a touch of truth in
it, inasmuch as one among other instances has been recorded where it
usefully supplied such a purpose. Dr. R. Brown mentions that in 1860
a Greenlander observed in a hole in the ice hundreds of Narwhals and
White Whales protruding their heads to breathe. It was likened to an
Arctic Black Hole of Calcutta, so eager were the creatures pushing
towards it. The natives gathered around, harpooned and shot the
creatures by the dozen, though many were lost, such was the scramble.
The Narwhal possesses only two teeth: the greatly-developed or left
canine, and within the jaw on the right side the rudiment of a similar
tooth which seldom is protruded; although in certain rare cases,
instead of one, the two tusks are developed. Along the jaw or gum there
is a scolloped appearance foreshadowing as it were teeth. In the palace
of Rosenberg, Dr. R. Brown states, there is a throne manufactured of
Narwhal ivory, and Captain Scoresby had a bedstead made of the same
substance. A Greenlander’s dainty is Narwhal skin boiled to a jelly,
this dish of _mattak_ being a _bonne bouche_ offered to strangers. The
oil is very superior, the flesh extremely palatable. Though so peculiar
in appearance and dentition, this veritable unicorn in all other
structural peculiarities is truly a Dolphin.
THE WHALEBONE WHALES (MYSTICETE).
These are distinguished from the Toothed Whales by their great upper
jaws being provided with baleen plates instead of teeth; in early life,
however, rudimentary teeth occasionally are present, but these never
project beyond the gums. Their skulls are symmetrical and not distorted
as in the Denticete. The organ of smell is distinctly developed, and
there is a double aperture to the blowhole. The separate bones in the
lower jaw arch widely outwards. The upper jaws are relatively narrow
and project forward at the same time with a great fore and aft arch,
but are encompassed by the lower jaw arches. The head is proportionally
of immense size, and admits of an extraordinarily capacious mouth. The
palate is but a narrow median line, and the huge mouth little else than
an enormous dome of whalebone plates whose inner lower margins are
frayed. Thus while the whalebone is longer than the depth of the closed
mouth, it nevertheless is accommodated by being tucked in below at its
flexible extremities. A great broad massive tongue fills the interspace
between the lower jaws. From this peculiar mouth-formation, the bony
area of and around the brain-pan is relatively small.
[Illustration: MEDIAN SECTION SHOWING INSIDE LEFT HALF OF SKULL
OF WHALEBONE WHALE, WITH BALEEN IN POSITION. (_Modified after
Eschricht._)
_Br_, brain cavity; _J_, _J*_, upper and lower jaw-bones, _bo_,
_bo_, being roughened parts of bone sawn through; arrows indicate
narial passages, which open at _s_, spout-hole; _w_, whalebone;
_t_, tongue in dotted outline; _n_, nerve aperture lower jaw.]
Most people have seen a large plate of whalebone, dark-tinted or
occasionally lighter, and one extremity ending in a fringe of
bristle-like hairs. The whalebone blade of dense horny-like material
is in the early stage composed of a brush of hair-like bodies, which,
lengthening, solidify and assume the hard horny appearance afterwards
known in the blade. The gum of the upper jaws has a series of these
plates, the one in front of the other, which elongate as growth
proceeds, but leave the free extremity with a fringe of separate hairs.
Again, the blade towards the gum is embedded in a fleshy substance
similar to the roots of our finger-nails. It grows continuously from
the roots, like the latter, and in many respects corresponds, save that
the free end is always fringed. Baleen, therefore, though varying from
a few inches to a number of feet long, in fact approximates to a series
of so to say mouth nail-plates, which laminæ have a somewhat transverse
position to the cavity of the mouth, and thus their inner split
edges and lower free ends cause the mouth to appear as a great hairy
archway, shallower in front and deeper behind. The animal in opening
its mouth gulps a quantity of water containing its minute marine food,
and then closing the mouth the liquid escapes and the small mollusca,
&c., are entangled in the hairy meshes. Some of the Whalebone Whales
are distinguished as smooth-skinned and as wanting dorsal fins--the
family Balænidæ, or Right Whales. Others have either a hump-like
protuberance or dorsal fin or a series of longitudinal skin-plaits on
the throat--the Balænopteridæ, or Humpbacks, and Rorquals.
[Illustration: GREENLAND OR RIGHT WHALE.]
THE GREENLAND, OR RIGHT WHALE.[250]--Among the Cetacea this,
_par excellence_, may be denominated _the_ Whale, for much of the
popular knowledge, interest, and commercial value of the group has
centred in this animal. It is the well-known form followed by the
Greenland whalers into the Arctic seas. The stories of its hunting
and authenticated accounts of its vast size, &c., associate it in
many minds as the most typical of the Whale tribe. But the truth is,
it is unusual in many respects, and not even quite representative of
the group of Whalebone Whales as a whole. Moreover, it is as well at
first to take notice of the fact that of the genus _Balæna_, that to
which the term Greenland or Right Whale is applicable is not the only
species. For a long time it was believed that this Whale inhabited a
very large area of the oceans. Later data, however, go to show that
at least five species have existed or still exist, each restricted
within a moderately defined area. _B. mysticetus_ reaches from the Gulf
of St. Lawrence up Baffin’s Bay and Smith’s Sound, and westwards by
Barrow Strait, &c., to the extremity of the North American continent,
and descends to Behring Strait, Kamstchatka, and the Sea of Okhotsk.
It moreover passes along the Arctic Ocean from Behring Strait to
Spitzbergen and the east of Greenland, that is, it has a circum-polar
area, in the two points already named descending to lower latitudes.
[Illustration: VIEWS TO ILLUSTRATE POSITION AND STRUCTURE OF BALEEN.
(_Modified partly after Eschricht, Owen, Turner, and Prichard._)
A, back of skull of Right Whale, looking into mouth, with
_w_, whalebone, _m_ being maxillary bone of palate, J,
lower jaw-bones; B, arch of baleen plates, as seen in
cross section of mouth; C, vertical section through gum,
palatal, or intermediate substance (_is_) with (_b_) three baleen
plates springing therefrom; D, whalebone in cross section
under the microscope and showing hair-like structure.]
THE BISCAY WHALE (_B. biscayensis_) differs in a
proportionally smaller head; shorter, thicker, and more brittle baleen;
smoother, thicker skin; and slightly bluish shade of colour. From the
eighth to the tenth century the Basque people established a Whale
fishery right in the middle of the Atlantic, and even to the beginning
of the last century it was known that the same kind of animal was
pursued across the Atlantic as far as Florida, and beyond Great Britain
towards Iceland. But these hardy seamen followed the Whale with such
vigour as to diminish, and, as was believed, drive it within the Arctic
circle, an assumption which has disappeared before the knowledge that
it differs from the so-called Greenland Whale. Almost between the
same parallels in the Pacific Ocean from the American to the Asiatic
shores is another--the JAPAN WHALE (_B. japonica_)--pursued
by English, American, and Japanese whalers. This black animal, with
a white eye-spot and paler on the chin and belly, has slenderer but
equally long baleen, and in certain osteological features is regarded
as specifically distinct. Another Whale, the CAPE WHALE (_B.
australis_), ranges from the Cape region across the South Atlantic to
the coast of South America below Brazil. While a fifth, the SOUTH
PACIFIC WHALE (_B. antipodarum_), occupies a strip from the South
American coast to New Zealand and Australia. The two latter have points
in common with the others, and are only distinguished as separate
species by supposed structural variations.
The habits of all these animals are exceedingly alike, and only in the
first two is there very decided distinction in appearance. Such being
the case, we may refer in detail to the Greenland Whale, Bowhead, or
great Polar Whale of the Americans. This creature ordinarily attains a
length of fifty or sixty or not more than seventy feet. The females are
said to be larger and fatter than the males, to produce one or rarely
two young ones in the spring, which are suckled for a twelvemonth,
and they exhibit a constancy and affection for this offspring not
surpassed by any other of the tribe. The bulky body is largest about
the middle, tapering rather suddenly towards the tail, the flukes of
which are occasionally over twenty feet from tip to tip. The flipper
is short and broadish; while the head is a third of the length of the
animal. The small eye is placed very low, but nevertheless above the
angle of the great arched-mouth. The head is surrounded by a large
swelling, at which point the double orifice of the blowhole forms an
obtuse angle. The adult is almost black, the young bluish-grey, the
lower parts of the throat cream-colour, and occasionally dispersed
whitish markings on the body. Gregarious in habit, they go in twos and
threes, but sometimes in greater numbers, even in large flocks; but the
herds now are indeed rare. Among the most remarkable peculiarities in
this Whale are the nature of its food and its mode of feeding. In the
high latitudes there floats in immense quantities a small soft-bodied
Mollusc (_Clio borealis_), an inch long, with expansions like wings;
and besides it there are numerous small Crustaceans and Jelly-fish of
various kinds. These, curiously enough, feed on infinitesimally minute
Jelly-specks, _Diatomaceæ_, &c. These latter thus form subsistence
to the former, which in their turn are the Whale’s food; so that,
as Dr. Robert Brown has remarked, this enormous marine monster in a
secondary manner is sustained by incredible numbers of organisms of
which 1,000 or more might be laid on a shilling piece. Captain David
Gray, a well-known successful whaler, has given a good account of the
mode of feeding. When the animal opens its mouth to feed, the whalebone
springs forwards and downwards so as to fill the mouth entirely. When
in the act of shutting it again, the whalebone being pointed slightly
towards the throat, the lower jaw catches it and carries it up into
the hollow of the mouth. They choose a space between two pieces of
ice, and swimming backwards and forwards secure the food near the
surface. They will continue feeding in this way for hours, afterwards
disappearing under the ice to sleep, and again suddenly reappearing
as hunger compels them. When the food is submerged ten or fifteen
fathoms, after feeding the Whale comes to the surface to breathe, and
swallows its mouthful. It then lies still a minute, raises its head
partially out of the water, again diving, throwing its tail in the air
as it disappears. At such times the whalers successfully harpoon them.
Occasionally they are easily captured, but more often are approached
with great danger. The periods of surface-breathing and descents in the
Right Whale are very different and irregular compared with those of the
Sperm Whale. At intervals of from five to fifteen or twenty minutes
they rise to breathe, and remain on the surface for about two minutes.
Their ordinary rate of travelling is nearly four miles an hour, but
if alarmed or wounded their pace is considerably increased. Like the
other Whales, they travel head to the wind. They appear to have periods
of migration. In May they are found off West Greenland; at the end of
June they cross Baffin’s Bay, towards Lancaster Sound and Eclipse Bay,
whence in August and September they strike south, and in November or
later reach Hudson Strait and the coast of Labrador. It is supposed
that the young are produced in these lower latitudes, and in spring the
Whales are believed to proceed again northwards. This ordinarily quiet,
harmless, but unwieldy creature, whose time seems to be divided between
feeding and sleeping, occasionally disports itself in fun and frolic,
like its more elegant but smaller congeners. It will then throw itself
clean out of the water, “lobtail,” “breach,” and so on.
The whaling ships, which are now most powerfully built
screw-propellers, leave Britain in the beginning of May for the
Greenland seas, and endeavour to come across the track of their prey in
the Baffin’s Bay districts. The men in the crow’s-nest have a weary and
cold outlook, and as opportunity offers chase is given in the whaleboat
in these dreary regions under circumstances well calculated to test the
bravest spirit. The vessels often hover on the edges of the ice, or
ram and bore their way through it, and when Whales are announced they
are assailed by the boats’ crews with harpoons, lance, and at times
harpoon-guns. These Whales when struck will occasionally run out more
than a mile of cable, but return to breathe at no great distance, when
the lance is used, and the extraordinary loss of blood weakens the
monster and lays him at the mercy of his pursuers. Whales that have
once been attacked and got free become very cunning, and instead of
diving direct go straight along the surface, dragging boats and even
ships into most dangerous positions, or cutting the ropes as they seek
shelter under the ice. The American whalers on the Okhotsk Sea vary
their mode of pursuit according to the district, often landing and even
making night whaling expeditions, being guided by the phosphorescence
accompanying the creatures’ movements. An ordinary-sized Whale, between
forty and fifty feet, will yield, according to Scammon, from sixty to
eighty barrels of oil, and 1,000 lbs. of baleen. The usual manner is
for the Whale to be brought along the port side of the vessel, its tail
forwards, belly up, and head aft. Tackled at each extremity, the men
with spiked boots commence to strip the blubber, which is hoisted on
deck. When the belly and right side with flipper are disposed of, the
carcass is canted and the other side is similarly treated. The material
is hastily put aside until the first quiet opportunity admits of it
being cut in pieces and finally stowed in the holds, where it is kept
in perfect safety until the return of the vessel. The skin and waste
pieces of flesh or “kreng” are thrown away, and as the carcass and such
useless matter are abandoned, they are quickly seized by the Killer
Whales, Threshers, and Greenland Sharks, and by enormous numbers of
sea-fowl that hover in the wake of the whaler.
[Illustration: HARPOON.]
THE HUMP-BACKED WHALES.[251]--Of this genus three, four,
or even more species are named by naturalists. The Long-finned (_M.
longimana_), or _Kepokak_ of the Greenlanders, inhabits the North
Atlantic area as far as Davis Strait. A southern form, the Cape
Hump-back (_M. Lalandii_), is distributed over the South Atlantic,
also towards both continents. There is a South Pacific form (_M. novæ
zelandiæ_), the New Zealand Hump-back, stretching to the American
coast, and still another, the Japanese Hump-back (_M. kuzira_), which
ranges to the Aleutian and Californian coasts. These Whales are by no
means as valuable for oil or baleen as the Right Whale, and are not
very frequently hunted. An adult averages fifty feet in length. The
skin of the throat and belly is plaited longitudinally like corrugated
iron with narrow furrows. The flippers are very long, one-third or
one-fourth the length of the animal, their edges often undulating.
The characteristic feature or hump, is a low dorsal fin, situate
behind the middle of the body. They have a bulky, stoutish body, and
a broad flat head, and the neck vertebræ are usually separate. They
are black, occasionally paler below, and some have white flippers, but
the baleen is black. Dr. Rink says that when struck with harpoon, the
Kepokak rushes along the surface without diving. They rest lazily near
the surface, beating their flippers as if scratching themselves. The
Greenlanders steal up to them when asleep, and stab them with lances.
All the species, at times, seem to delight in endless springing and
dashing out of the water. They will yield from twenty to thirty barrels
of oil, and a few hundredweight of an inferior quality of whalebone.
The Hump-back of the Pacific, according to Scammon, proceeds north in
summer, and returns southwards on the approach of winter; but they have
been observed with young following them at various times and seasons.
Considerable interest is attached to another Cetacean of the North
Pacific, which Capt. Scammon names the California Grey Whale.[252] The
female of this animal is from forty to forty-four, and the male seldom
more than thirty-five feet in length. In shape it may be said to be
somewhat intermediate between the Right Whale, the Hump-backs, and
the Rorquals, though in most respects nearest the last two. It has no
back fin or hump, but instead a series of cross ridges on the hinder
part of the back towards the tail. Occasionally individuals are nearly
black, but the more common and characteristic colour is a mottled-grey
or speckled patches of white on all the upper parts, underneath being
darkest in body-tint. The flippers are fully six feet long, broad in
the middle, but taper to a point. The head arches downwards from the
blowhole forwards, and the baleen is remarkably short, brownish-white,
and coarse in texture. From November till May this Whale frequents
the Californian coast, and then the females enter the shallow bays
and lagoons, and give birth to their young, while the males keep
seawards. During the summer months they all journey northwards along
the coast, and congregate amidst the ice in the Arctic Ocean and the
Okhotsk Sea. So regular are their migrations, and so close in-shore
do they swim, that Eskimo and Indians alike keep watch at the proper
season, and as they pass successfully attack them in their canoes. The
flukes, lips, and fins form native dainties, the oil is bartered for
reindeer, a sauce is made of the entrails, and the Eskimo dogs feast
on the flesh. Since 1851 a system of coast and bay whaling has been
profitably pursued by the Americans along the Californian shores. At
first 1,000 Whales would daily pass the outlook stations, though not
a tenth part are now seen, so great has been the havoc and so shy of
the land and whale-boats have the Californian Greys become. In calm
weather these Whales will lie motionless for an hour or so on the
surface of the water, but they nevertheless seem to delight in dashing
and splashing among the surf and breakers. At other times they huddle
together in shoal water, almost getting aground, while their young swim
freely about in sportive play. The dam’s attachment to her offspring
is very great, and hence lagoon whaling is most dangerous. Casualties
are of constant occurrence in these narrow passages, the old Whale in
her frenzy dashing her head against the boats, and lashing all around
with her tail-flukes; hence the sailors call them “Devil-fish,” and
“Hard-head,” while “Mussel-digger” is applied to them from their habit
of probing among the mud. They often roam among the seaweed-banks,
where the whaler shoots them with the harpoon-gun, as he lies in
wait in a small boat or sailing craft. Thus this piebald Whale runs
every chance of early extinction, seeing that whether in warm or cold
latitudes, it is relentlessly pursued by its dire enemy--man.
[Illustration: HUMP-BACK WHALE SUCKLING HER YOUNG.]
THE FIN-WHALES, OR RORQUALS,[253] as a group, vary exceedingly in size.
Although at times of great dimensions, they are not so bulky in form
and unwieldy as the foregoing whalebone groups. Their elongate bodies,
smaller-mouthed heads, shorter baleen, plaited throats, and relatively
narrow and small flippers, with a dorsal fin behind the middle of the
back, high laterally-compressed tail-root, and separate neck-bones,
besides other osteological characters, distinguish them sharply from
the preceding. The amount of blubber and baleen in these Whales being
exceedingly limited, coupled with their great muscular activity,
restless disposition, difficulty and danger of approach, causes them
to be seldom hunted. Their capture in fact is not remunerative. As a
consequence, their numbers in some districts are considerable though
scattered; even off British coasts certain species create great havoc
in the herring and other fisheries. There may exist from eight to a
dozen fairly-recognised species, and quite as many more doubtful ones.
They have been divided into several genera by various naturalists,
though there is a tendency to revert to the single term _Balænoptera_.
So migratory are they, so active, and changeable towards localities,
that little is known of their precise geographical distribution. They
are found in the Polar seas, throughout the whole of the Atlantic, in
the Indian, Pacific, and Antarctic Oceans. In their habits they have
much in common. Ordinarily they do not congregate in large herds,
though twos and threes, and occasionally more, keep company; others
seem even more solitary in disposition. They are all more or less
fish-eaters, and they commit great devastation among the Cod-bearing
banks and Herring shoals--six and eight hundred fish having been found
in the stomach of an individual. A few attain the enormous length of
even 100 feet, and sixty or seventy feet is not an uncommon average,
though some of the species are by no means distinguished on account of
size. One of the largest forms is SIBBALD’S RORQUAL (_B. Sibbaldii_),
black above and slate-grey below, varied with whitish spots. The
Icelanders term this animal “Steypireythr,” and it is rather abundant
in that region and South Greenland. Another of immense dimensions
is known to the Pacific whalers as the SULPHUR-BOTTOM WHALE (_B._
(_Sibbaldius_) _sulfureus_). This glides with great velocity over the
ocean, and is known at a distance by the vast amount of vapour it sends
forth in blowing. Its yellowish belly gives its specific name. At times
they appear in considerable numbers on the Californian coasts. One is
recorded to have followed a ship for twenty-four consecutive days,
and rifle-shots, &c., did not drive it away. The captain and crew at
first had great fears of mischief, but at length the companionship
of “Blowhard,” as they called him, and his close approach, became a
subject of interest and merriment to them. The COMMON RORQUAL, or
RAZOR-BACK (_B. musculus_), black above and brilliant white below, with
an average length of sixty or seventy feet, is a well-known frequenter
of British coasts. The LESSER RORQUAL (_B. rostrata_) resembles the
last, but never reaches more than twenty-five or thirty feet. It
frequents the North Atlantic and Arctic Ocean, and is supposed to
stretch even as far as Labrador, Davis Strait, and the Aleutian Isles.
It likewise has been met with several times in British waters, but it
is best known as the “Seigval,” or Cod-Whale of Finland, and from the
fact that it is a regular summer visitant to Norway.
A great many of the remains of Fossil Whales found in the Miocene and
Pliocene deposits in various parts of Europe belong to the Fin-backs.
One genus, the _Cetotherium_, Brandt has suggested, might form a
transition between the Whales and our next order, the Sirenia. This
supposition, however, is not borne out by facts, such features as
denote likeness being rather deceptive. The Rhytina, a Sirenian,
wanting teeth and with a somewhat Cetacean-like tail, however
Whale-like in outward figure, in other respects is quite different from
any member of the Order Cetacea, which taken as a whole cannot possibly
be affirmed to show substantial links of close affinity either with the
other Marine Mammalia or with the Land Mammalian groups.
JAMES MURIE.
[Illustration: COMMON RORQUAL. (_After Flower._)]
ORDER SIRENIA (THE MANATEES).
Introductory Remarks--Mermaids--Position--General Characteristics of
the Order--STELLER’S RHYTINA--Habits--Extinct--DUGONG--Range--Habits
--Uses--Teeth--MANATEE--Distribution--Peculiar Mouth--Mode of
Feeding--Story of “Patcheley,” a tame Manatee--Halitherium and other
Fossil Forms.
This order of the Marine Mammalia comprises only a few animals, which,
however, possess a peculiar interest to the zoologist. But two genera
are now found alive, and a third genus was utterly extirpated about a
century ago. Others are only known from fossil remains. Notwithstanding
the ungainly, almost positively repulsive, appearance of the living
forms, they yet have a hold on the popular imagination on account of
their being the actual representatives of the famed Sirens and Mermaids
of yore. The ancients, in their voyages to Eastern climes, gathered
stories concerning the existence of strange creatures, half woman,
half fish, chiefly frequenting the shores of Taprobane (Ceylon); and
fancy, with oft-told but unchecked repetition of tales, soon lent
a charm to the supposed beings, by conferring on these sea-nymphs
imaginary flowing tresses, and sweet dulcet voices, by whose luring
wiles the unwary mariner was entrapped, or led to destruction.
Howsoever ridiculous such notions may now be regarded, they are,
nevertheless, to be satisfactorily explained, for the singular Dugong,
with its fish-like tail, roundish head, and mammæ on its breast, has
the habit of occasionally raising half of its body perpendicularly
out of the water and clasping its young to its breast. These actions
have, doubtless, given a colourable pretext to all the fables of
mermaids--those “missing links,” which even yet our children delight
in, when narrated in “The Little Mermaid,” by the talented pen of a
Hans Andersen.
The Manatee or Dugong group, partly from aquatic habitat and some
outward resemblances, for long was classed among the Whales; by F.
Cuvier they were termed the Grass-eating (“les Cétacés herbivores”)
in contradistinction to the flesh-devouring Cete, or Whales proper.
Early in this century Illiger signalised and defined them as a separate
sub-order “Sirenia,” their organisation distinctly differing from
that of the Whales; while De Blainville, later on, pressed their
Elephant-like structures as entitling them to close proximity with
these creatures--his “Gravigrades.”
[Illustration: SKELETON OF MANATEE. (_Modified after De
Blainville._)
_a_, Dotted outline of Lungs.]
Among the general characters of the Sirenia is a long, compact,
cylindrical body (without back fin), narrowing towards the tail, which
terminates either Whale-like, in forked flukes, or Beaver-like, in a
great, flat, fibrous expansion, in either case set horizontally. The
fore-limbs are encased, flat, and flipper-like, exceedingly flexible,
and more completely formed than in Whales. The extinct and fossil
Halitherium alone is known to have possessed rudiments of hind-limbs,
though pelvic bones are present in all. Ears are wanting, and the eyes
are very small, whilst two valvular nostrils are situate over a full
prominent muzzle, which is provided with a copious supply of peculiar
short bristles, while the inside angles of the mouth are hairy. Their
dark skin is Elephant-like, tough, rough, sparsely hairy, or smoothish
and Whale-like. The two mammæ are on the breast close to the armpits.
One genus (Rhytina) was toothless, but the others had ample dentition.
Moreover, in all the front of the upper and lower jaws is provided
with curious, rough, horny pads or plates. The larynx differs from
that of the Cetacea and resembles that of Land Mammals. The midriff,
or diaphragm, is most unusually lengthened backwards. The apex of
the heart is cleft, giving the appearance of a double organ, and the
blood-vessels almost everywhere in the body and limbs split into
_rete mirabile_. The stomach has two main digestive chambers, and to
the first is added a pair of small divergent horn-shaped appendages,
besides a remarkable finger-shaped gland. Unlike Whales or Elephants
their small brain has few convolutions. All the bones are dense and
heavy, and are the most solid among Mammals. Manatus is unique among
the living Mammalia in having but six neck vertebræ, and, as in the
other Sirenia, they are all separate. The ribs are uncommonly thick.
The skull is relatively much smaller than in the Cetacea, is low
set, somewhat elongated, and truncated at each extremity. The side
bones (_parietals_) meet above, the occiput is small, the orbits well
defined, and the nasal passages are directed forwards; the lower jaw
has a high vertical limb (or ramus) behind, and in the Dugong the upper
and lower jaw-bones are strangely bent down. The Sirenia are animals
of slow habit, and are most inoffensive. They feed solely on aquatic
vegetation. As being the most Whale-like in size and shape of tail, we
shall first introduce to notice the Rhytina.
STELLER’S RHYTINA,[254] the Morskaia Korava of the Russians,
and alone representative of the genus, is a creature now extinct, but
which was living and in tolerable abundance a hundred and fifty years
ago. When the Russian, Behring--after whom the Strait is named--first
visited that region and the neighbourhood of Kamstchatka, there existed
a huge animal, of which, under the name of Manatee, or Northern Sea Cow
(_Vacca marina_), the naturalist Steller, who accompanied him, gave a
classical account. It had a small oblong head, a full bristly snout,
a dark-coloured body, protected by a rugged, gnarled, warty, hairless
skin. The fore limbs were quite short and stumpy, hairy at their ends,
and they had no finger-bones beyond the wrist. The tail was black,
ending in a horizontal, stiff, half-moon-shaped, narrow fin-blade,
fringed with a fibrous whalebone-like material. It had no teeth, but
horny, almost bony plates, corresponding to the horny gum-pads of the
Dugong and Manatee, served the purpose of mastication. According to
Steller, it attained a length of from twenty to twenty-eight feet.
Though stupid, voiceless, animals, they were of a very affectionate
disposition, and were readily tamed, even allowing themselves to be
handled. Their conjugal affection was strikingly developed. A male,
who in vain attempted to relieve his partner, stuck by her, in spite
of repeated blows, and when she died he returned to the spot for some
days, as if he expected to see her again. They were very voracious,
and fed on seaweeds, with their heads under water; and every now and
then they raised their noses to breathe, and made a snorting noise.
They appeared in families, each consisting of a male, female, one half
grown, and a cub born in autumn; and sometimes these families united
into great herds. As they were very good eating (far preferable to salt
junk), Steller recommended them as articles of diet to the sailors;
and so faithfully was his advice observed by natives and seamen, that
within twenty-seven years of his first visit the last Rhytina was
killed, namely, in 1768. They were hunted with a boat-hook attached to
a long rope, which, when the animal was struck, was passed to a company
of men on shore, who, with considerable difficulty, managed to land
the huge Sea Cow. This animal appears to have had an extremely limited
range, having never been met with anywhere but in the small Behring
Island, off the coast of Kamstchatka. Their sudden extinction is a
most noteworthy fact, and but for Steller’s admirable account nothing
whatsoever would have been known of the habits, internal structure, or
outward appearance of this singular Sirenian. Though the adults were
toothless, yet by some it is supposed from analogy that in early life
functionless teeth may have existed, though these never appeared above
the gums. The Rhytina, in its forked tail, somewhat down-bent jaws, and
other points, resembled the Dugong; while in skull characters and skin
it was like the Manatee; and though somewhat whale-shaped, it was a
true Sirenian.
THE DUGONG,[255] typical of the genus Halicore, is a living
form, ordinarily from ten to twelve feet long, though very old males
are said occasionally to reach as much as eighteen to twenty feet.
Its distribution is rather widespread, namely, from the Red Sea and
East African coasts to the west coast of Australia; and they are even
yet not unfrequently met with within these limits, on the coasts of
Mauritius, Ceylon, and the Indian Archipelago, though in numbers fast
becoming thinned. Outwardly they differ from the Rhytina in being
smoother-skinned, and in having the fore-limbs longer, and the tail
semi-lunar, but deeper or less fluked, and not marginally split. Their
colour is slaty-brown or bluish-black above, and whitish below. The
early traveller, Leguat, speaks of droves of several hundreds grazing
like Sheep on the seaweeds a few fathoms deep in the clear waters of
the Mascarene Islands. Usually this tropical animal frequents the
shallow smooth waters of the bays, inlets, and river estuaries where
marine vegetation (fucus and seaweeds) is in abundance, and there it
leisurely feeds, being lethargic in disposition, but an immense eater.
When they have not been much chased they are not shy or timid, and
even allow the natives to handle them; on which occasions the admiring
spectators generally manage to abstract the smaller and fatter cubs
as dainties, for they are considered uncommon good food. So highly
prized are they, that the Malay king considers it a royal “fish,” and
he claims all taken in his dominions. The flesh of the young, when
cooked in a variety of ways, is certainly wholesome--by some compared
to veal, and by others to beef or pork--but the older animals are
tougher. The Moreton Bay colonists call them “Sea Pig.” They yield a
clear oil of the best quality, which is free from all objectionable
smell, and it is strongly recommended as a remedial agent in lieu of
cod-liver oil. Hence an Australian Dugong fishery has been established;
but its equipped boats’ crews are fast sweeping off the once plentiful
numbers. The stories of their being found ashore, browsing on land
herbage, are not supported by fact; indeed, the inadequate strength of
their fore-limbs, the absence of hind extremities, and their unwieldy
bodies, prevent them from travelling on land. This is borne out by
the statements of the natives of Sumatra to Sir Stamford Raffles, as
well as other travellers. The Red Sea Arabs told Dr. Rüppell that
they had feeble voices, a fact that other Australian observers have
corroborated, although the roaring of Seals has been mistaken for
them. In the spring months the males do battle for partners, and the
young are born towards the end of the year. Like the Rhytina, the
Dugong shows intense maternal affection, for if the young be taken, the
mother suffers herself to be speared in following her offspring. In its
strange bristly-clad muzzle the Dugong resembles its congeners, but
its skull and dentition are singular. Thus, the fore or premaxillary
region of the upper jaw is elongated, sharply crooked downwards, and
overlaps the very deep lower jaw, which is similarly down-bent. The
two opposed surfaces bear the horny tuberculated plates which rub and
grind the vegetable food. The dental formula ordinarily is--Incisors,
(1-1)/(0-0); canines, (0-0)/(0-0); molars, (3-3)/(3-3) = 14. The pair
of incisor tusks are lodged in the down-bent upper jaw, and protrude in
the male, but in the female they are diminutive, and retained within
the bone. Behind them there is a considerable space devoid of canine,
and then come three slightly laterally compressed ovoid molars without
enamel. The molars, however, may occasionally be five in number, the
fore ones dropping out, and others behind taking their places, but not
succeeding vertically. In some instances the males have an additional
lateral small incisor. Thus as many as twenty-four teeth may be
developed, but these are never in use at one and the same time. This
peculiar dentition, and the successive displacement of the anterior
molars, foreshadows what is regularly found in the Elephants and
Mastodons.
[Illustration: MANATEES.]