246 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



gree of satisfaction, explain their true nature. To use Darwin's 

 simile, such rudiments are like letters in a word which have become 

 obsolete in pronunciation, but which are retained in the spelling, and 

 serve as a clew to the derivation of the word. 



In the course of these remarks allusion has been made to more than 

 one species of whale, and it may, therefore, form a study of some in- 

 terest if we endeavor, shortly, to gain an idea of the general relation- 

 ship and degrees of affinity of the various members of this curious 

 family-circle. The whale order includes several of the divisions to 

 which the zoologist applies the name of " families," indicating, by 

 this latter term, a close affinity in form, structure, and habits between 

 the members of each group. First in importance among these fami- 

 lies comes that of the whalebone whales (Balamidce). Here we find 

 family characters in a head disproportionately large when compared 

 with the body as a whole, while the muzzle is sloping, and of rounded 

 conformation. Teeth are absent, as we have seen ; whalebone-plates 

 fringe the palate ; and the " blowhole " is single, and exists on the top 

 of the head. Such are the family characters in which the Greenland 

 or Right whale and the still larger Rorqual participate along with the 

 "finner" whales and "humpbacked" whales. There is no back fin 

 in the Greenland whale, but the Rorquals and their neighbors possess 

 this appendage. It need - hardly be said that, commercially, the former 

 animal is of most importance ; while the Rorquals are famed as the 

 largest of the whales. Specimens of the Rorqual have been captured 

 exceeding a hundred feet in length. One specimen, measuring ninety- 

 five feet in length, weighed 245 tons. Next in importance to the 

 Greenland whale and its relatives may be mentioned the family 

 Physeterid<%, of which the sperm whale is the representative form. 

 Here, the head reaches literally enormous proportions, and may make 

 up fully one third of the body. A blunt, square muzzle ; a lower jaw 

 armed with teeth ; an absence of baleen-plates, and a front blowhole 

 such are the characters of the sperm whale, which gives sperm-oil 

 to the merchant, and spermaceti and ambergris to the man of drugs. 

 A whole host of " small fry " present themselves as near relations of 

 the whales, in the shape of the dolphins, porpoises, grampus, "bottle- 

 noses," and other animals, including the famous narwhal, or sea-uni- 

 corn, possessing the longest tooth in the world in the shape of a spiral 

 ivory pole, of some eight or ten feet in length. Here also the Beluga 

 '<itodon, or " white whale," finds a zoological home, this latter form 

 being the species of which more than one specimen has been recently 

 exhibited in London. The beluga, being a member of the dolphin 

 family, is a " whale " by courtesy only. Like the other members of 

 this group, its blowhole is single and crescentic in shape, and both 

 jaws are well provided with teeth. But the beluga, unlike the dol- 

 phins and porpoises, has no back fin, and its muzzle is blunt. This 

 animal, however, is still certainly " very like a whale " in its general 



