

340 SIZE OF WHALES 



muscular. Brain much expanded transversely and well con- 

 voluted. Testes abdominal Teats two, inguinal in position. 

 Placenta diffuse and non-deciduate. 



The Whales and Dolphins, which constitute this order, form an 

 assemblage which is easily characterised by reason of the fact 

 that their affinities to other groups of Mammalia are so doubtful 

 that they furnish matter rather for speculation than for authori- 

 tative statement. Some hold that they resemble in certain points 

 the Ungulata ; while others again see in them the culminating 

 term of a series which commences with such a form as the Otter, 

 and of which the Seals and Sea-lions are intermediate stages. A 

 third opinion is that the Whales have arisen from some low 

 mammalian stock, too primitive to be assigned to any existing 

 order of mammals. Palaeontology, as will be seen later, throws 

 no light whatever upon their origin. This matter has already 

 been referred to (see p. 120) in considering the position of the 

 Cetacea 



The Whales include the most gigantic of all the orders of 

 vertebrated animals. No creature living or extinct is so large as 

 the Sibbald's Eorqual, which attains to a length of some 85 feet, 

 or perhaps even rather more. On the other hand we have what 

 are by comparison minute forms. Apart from the possibly pro- 

 blematical Delphinus minutus, stated to be only 2 feet in length, 

 we have as a minimum 3 or 4 feet. The size of the Cetacea 

 has been subjected to much exaggeration. The first duty of a 

 Whale, observed the late Sir William Flower, is to be large ; and 

 Natural Historians, in the recent as well as in the remote past, 

 have not hesitated to put very round numbers upon the dimen- 

 sions of the larger members of the order. We may perhaps 

 pass over Pliny's " fish called balaena or whirlpool, which is so 

 long and broad as to take up more in length and breadth than 

 two acres of ground," and a number of analogous exaggerations, 

 which gradually dwindled down to the dimensions just stated of 

 the great Eorqual. M. Pouchet has made the ingenious sug- 

 gestion that the statements of the ancients may have been nearer 

 the truth than observations of to-day would have us believe ; 

 he pointed out justly that in former times Whales were not so 

 relentlessly pursued as during the last century ; the inference 

 being that they may have lived to a greater age, and attained 

 a more colossal bulk. The more modern exaggerations in the 



