The Living Animals of the World, Volume I: Mammals
Photo by A, S. liudland d- Song.
GRAMPUS, OE KILLER.
A carnivorous cetacean with large teeth, often found in British seas.
hair; but others, if only in the embryonic stage, have traces of this characteristic mammalian covering. It must, moreover, be remembered that in some other orders of mammals the amount of hair varies considerably as, for instance, between the camel and rhinoceros.
Having, then, shown that whales are mammals, we must now determine the chief features
:of the more typical members of the order. The extremities of' whales are characteristic a large head, occupying in some species as much as one-third of the total length; and the afore-mentioned forked, or lobed, tail set laterally. The flippers, which bear only a slight resemblance to the pectoral fins in fishes, are in reality hands encased in swimming-gloves. In some whales these hands are five-fingered, in others the fingers number only four.
The Dugong, Manatees, Whales, Porpoises, and Dolphins 331
but many of the fingers contain more bones than the fingers of man. In some whales we find a dorsal fin, and this, as also the flippers, acts as a balancer. In no whale or porpoise is there any external trace of hind limbs, but the skeleton of some kinds shows in varying stages of degradation a rudimentary bone answering to this description. Perhaps however, the most distinctive feature of whales is the blow-hole, situated, like the nostrils of the hippopotamus, on the upper surface of the head, and similarly enabling the animal to its head above the surface of the water. Thebreathe the air without exposing much of blow-hole (or blow-holes, for whalebone-whales have two) may be said to take the place of nostrils as regards the breathing, though perhaps no sense of smell is included in its functions. In the Sperm-whale, or Cachalot, there is a single c/)-shaped blow-hole near the end of -the snout. The well-known spouting of whales is merely the breathing out of warm vapour, which, ison coming in contact with the colder air and it should be remembered that most whaling carried on in the neighbourhood of icebergs condenses in a cloud above the animal's head. I have seen many a sperm-whale spout, and the cloud of spray, often mixed with a varying volume of water if the whale commences to blow before its blow-hole is clear of the surface, drifts forward over the forehead. This is due to the forward position of the blow-hole. I never to my knowledge saw a whalebone-whale spouting, but its double jet is said to ascend vertically over its back, and this would in like manner be accounted for by the more posterior position of the blow-holes. Having filled its lungs, which are long and of simple structure, with fresh air, in enormous draughts that fill the great cavities of its chest, the whale sinks to the depths. There, in ordinary circumstances, it will lie for a quarter of an hour or more, but the pain of the harpoon and the knowledge that there is danger at the surface may keep it below for as much as an hour. When it has to breathe again, a few powerful strokes from the laterally set tail suffice to bring it quickly to the surface. This is not the place for a detailed anatomy of the whale;* but no one can fail to notice with admiration such parts of its equipment for the battle of life as the structure of its windpipe, which enables it to breathe with comfort with its mouth full of water, the complicated network of blood-vessels that ensures the slow and thorough utilising of all the oxygen in its lungs while it remains at the bottom, and the elastic cushion of blubber that makes this gigantic animal indifferent to extremes of pressure and temperature. Thanks mainly to its coat of blubber, the whale ; in the arctic or inexists with equal comfort at the surface or hundreds of fathoms below it tropical seas. It is not perhaps in keeping with the plan of this work that we should consider in detail the soft parts of the whale's inside. One or two parts of its feeding and digestive mechanism may, however, offer some points of passing interest. The complex stomach, which is divided into chambers, like that of the ruminants already described, has suggested that the latter function
Photo by A. S. Rudland it- Song.
SHOKT-BEAKED KIVEK-DOLPHIN.
In this type the head is produced into a beak, supported in the upper jaw by a mass of ivory-like bone.
of the World 332 The Living Animals
may in a modified process be performed by whales. It is, however, evident that the teeth of toothed whales are in no way adapted to the act of mastication, which is inseparable from any conception of ruminating, while the toothless whales have as complicated a stomach as the rest. Mr. Beddard, writing on the subject in his interesting " Book of Whales," takes the more reasonable view that the first chamber of the stomach of whales should be regarded rather as a storehouse in which the food is crushed and softened. The teeth of whales, the survival of which in the adult animal offers the simplest basis of its classification under one or other of the two existing groups, or sub-orders, are essentially different from the teeth of many other kinds of mammals. It cannot, perhaps, be insisted that the distinctive terms employed for these two categories of whales are wholly satisfactory. For instance, the " " so-called toothless whales have distinct teeth before birth, thus claiming descent from toothed '; " kinds. On the other hand, the so-called toothed whales are by no means uniformly equipped in this respect, some of the porpoises having as many as twenty-six teeth, distributed over both jaws, while the bottlenoses have no more than two, or at most four, and these in . bears teeth thatthe lower jaw only. Only the lower jaw, in fact, of the great sperm-whale are of any use, though there are smaller and functionless teeth in the gums of the upper. The teeth of whales, by the way, are not differentiated like our canines and molars, but are-all of one character. Although, in " toothless " whales, the fetal teeth disappear with the coming of the baleen, or whalebone, the latter must not, in either structure or uses, be thought to take their place. The plates of whalebone act rather as a hairy strainer. Unless we seek a possible analogy at the other end of the mammalian scale, in the Australian duckbill, the feeding of the whalebone-whales is Photo by A. S. Rudtand a,- Soitx.
SOWERBY'S BEAKED WHALE.
unique. They gulp in seas.the water, full of plank- One of the rarest of British whales, and very scarce elsewhere. It probably inhabits the open ton, swimming openmouthed through the streaks of that substance. Then the huge jaws are closed, and the massive tongue is moved slowly, so as to drive the water from the angles of the mouth through the straining-plates of baleen, the food remaining stranded on these and on the tongue. The size and number of the baleen-plates appear to vary in a degree not yet definitely established; but there may, in a large whale, be as many as between 300 and 400- on either side of the cavernous mouth, and they may measure as much as 10 or 12 feet in length and 7 or 8 feet in. width.
An enumeration of such whales and porpoises and dolphins as have at one time or other been stranded on the shores of the British Isles may serve as an epitome of the whole order. Only one interesting group, in fact the Eiver-dolphins of the Ganges and Amazons is unrepresented in the British list. Whales, either exhausted or dead, are periodically thrown, up on our coasts, even on the less-exposed portions one of the most recent examples in the writer's memory being that of a large specimen, over 60 feet long, stranded on the sands near Boscombe, in Hampshire, and the skeleton of which at present adorns Boscombe Pier. It was one of the rorquals, or finbacks, probably of the species called after Rudolphi; but the skeleton is imperfect, though its owner, Dr. Spencer Simpson, appears to have preserved some details of its earlier appearance. It should be remembered that many of the following can considerable latitude, the records of their visits being in.only be regarded as " British " with
The Dugong, Manatees, Whales, Porpoises, and Dolphins 333 some cases as rare as those of the rustic bunting and red-necked nightjar among birds, or of the derbio and spotted dragonet among fishes.
: WHALEBONE-WHALES: Southern British zoologists, however, usually include the following : Sperm-whale, or Cachalot;Right-whale; Humpback; Finbacks, or Rorquals. TOOTHED WHALES Narwhal; Beluga, or White Whale; Grampuses; Beaked Whale; Broad-fronted Whale; Cuvier's Whale; Sowerby's Whale; Pilot-whale; Porpoise; Dolphin; White-sided Dolphin; W'hite-beaked Dolphin; Bottlenose. therefore be made of five of the most representative of these species the A selection may SOUTHERN WHALE, the CACHALOT, the NARWHAL, the PORPOISE, and the DOLPHIN.
The SOUTHERN WHALE, which, in common with the closely allied polar species, whaling-iscrews call "right," seeing that all other kinds are, from their point of view, "wrong," probably the only right-whale which has ever found its way to our shores. Some writers include the Greenland Right-whale, but their authority for this is doubtful. It is said to grow to a length of at any rate 70 feet, though 55 feet would perhaps be more common for even large specimens. In colour it is said to be dark above, with a varying amount of white or grey on the flippers and under-surface. The head and mouth are very large, occupying in some cases one-third of the total length, and the baleen-plates measure as much as 8 or 10 feet in length and 5 or 6 feet in width. The species has no back-fin, but there is a protuberance on the snout, known technically as the " bonnet." This whale appears to give birth to its single calf some time in the spring months, and the mother shows great affection for her offspring. The HUMPBACK is distinguished from the right-whales externally by its longer flippers and the prominence on its back, and internally by the fluted skin of the throat. The FINNERS, or RORQUALS, have a distinct back-fin. They feed on fishes and cuttles, and I have more than once known a rorqual, which looked fully 50 feet long (comparing it roughly with my 24-foot boat), to swim slowly round and round my lugger, down on the Cornish coast, puffing and hissing like a torpedo-boat on its trial trip, rounding up the pilchards in a mass, and every now and then dashing through them open-mouthed with a terrific roar, after several of which helpings it would sink out of sight and not again put in an appearance. The SPERM-WHALE, or CACHALOT, may serve as our type of the toothed whales. It attains to the same great dimensions as the largest of the whalebone group. A more active
Photo by A. S. liudiand.1- Sons.