WHALES AND THEIR NEIGHBORS. 245 



and it is not too much to say that toward the side of the idea which 

 advocates gradual modification and selection as the rule of life and 

 nature, every unbiased student of natural science will by sheer force 

 of circumstances be led to turn. 



The whalebone whales have no teeth, although the sperm whale 

 possesses teeth in the lower jaw ; but thereby that is, as regards the 

 teeth of whales at large hangs a tale of some importance, and to 

 which our attention may be briefly directed. Among the paradoxes 

 of living nature, no circumstances present more curious features than 

 those relating to the so-called " rudimentary organs " of animals and 

 plants ; the subject of these organs, and the lessons they are well 

 calculated to teach, having been recently treated at some length in 

 these pages. Now, the whales furnish several notable examples of the 

 anomalies which apparently beset the pathways of development in 

 animals. The adult whalebone whale is toothless, as has just been 

 remarked ; and this fact becomes more than usually interesting when 

 taken in connection with another, namely, that the young whale before 

 birth possesses teeth, which are shed or absorbed, and in consequence 

 disappear before it is born. These teeth never " cut the gum," and 

 the upper jaw of the sperm whale presents us with a like phenomenon 

 for consideration. Nor are the whales peculiar in this respect. The 

 upper jaw of ruminant animals has no front teeth as may be seen 

 by looking at the mouth of a cow or sheep yet the calf may possess 

 rudimentary teeth in this situation, these teeth also disappearing be- 

 fore birth. Now, what meaning, it may be asked, are we to attach to 

 such phases of development ? Will any considerations regarding the 

 necessity for preserving the "symmetry," or "type," of the animal 

 form aid us here ; or will the old and overstrained argument from 

 design enable us to comprehend why nature should provide a whale 

 or a calf with teeth for which there is no conceivable use ? The only 

 satisfying explanation which may be given of such anomalies may be 

 couched in Darwin's own words. The embryonic teeth of the whales 

 have a reference " to a former state of things." They have been re- 

 tained by the power of inheritance. They are the ignoble remnants 

 and descendants of teeth which once were powerful enough, and of 

 organs with which the mighty tenants of the seas and oceans of the 

 past may have waged war on their neighbors. Again, the laws and 

 ideas of development stand out in bold relief as supplying the key to 

 the enigma. Adopt the theory that "things are now just as they 

 always were," and what can we say of rudimentary teeth, save that 

 Nature is a blunderer at best, and that she exhibits a lavish waste of 

 power in supplying animals with useless structures ? But choose the 

 hypothesis of development, and we may see in the embryo-teeth the 

 representatives of teeth which in the ancestors of our whales served 

 all the purposes of such organs. Admit that, through disuse, they 

 have become abortive and izseless ; and we may then, with some de- 



