28 



HA R£> WI CKE 'S S CIENCE - G OSS IP. 



deposit their spawn ; but there are many which do 

 not require this. The spawn of some floats about 

 unattached ; for others a frond of weed is sufficient 

 attachment ; and it has occurred to me that the dis- 

 tribution of the Sperm Whale may in some way be 

 connected with the geological antecedents of the 

 ocean it inhabits. I think it not improbable that the 



Fig. 12. Chair in Great Yarmouth Church formed of the 

 basal portion of the skull of a Sperm Whale (from Palmer's 

 " Perlustration of Great Yarmouth"). 



site of a submerged land may swarm with life, which 

 originally proceeded, or was dependent on it, long 

 after it had been in the deep bosom of 

 the ocean buried. The Sargasso seas, 

 which swarm with Eolidcr. and Crustacea, 

 are examples of this life : it is not invaria- 

 bly either present or absent in deep water, 

 and it is its presence or its absence which 

 is instructive. Those animals which re- 

 quired a bottom to spawn upon may have 

 died out or been developed into others 

 which do not ; and those which do not 

 require such a support may have multi- 

 plied correspondingly. In one of the maps 

 in Lieutenant Maury's book, already cited, there 

 is a space of sea opposite the western coast of South 



in some way to it — might continue to linger over it 

 long after it had passed beyond the depth at which it 

 could practically have any effect upon the animal life 

 above it ; but if a part of the circumference of the 

 globe has always been under water, before and ever 

 since the creation of life, no life is likely to be found 

 on that spot, because it has never had a starting-point 

 of life from which to begin ; and, as already said, a 

 slender barrier stops the spread of species, and 

 species would certainly not spread to a spot where 

 there was nothing for them to feed upon. Again, 

 animal life could not begin to feed upon animal life 

 till vegetable life had previously prepared the way by 

 providing food for the animals which were to furnish 

 food for others ; and vegetable life could not begin to 

 grow without a foundation of land, accessible either 

 above or below water. The total and constant 

 absence of all life at any particular spot appears to 

 me, therefore, to furnish a presumption that there has 

 never been dry land or shallow water there. Whether 

 the continuance of deep water in one spot for some 



Fig. 13. Under surface of the Chair (from same work). 



America, and lying between Patagonia and New Zea- 

 land, marked ' Desolate region, distinguished by the 

 absence of animal or vegetable life ' ; — no sperm 

 whales here— nothing for them to feed upon — and no 

 symptoms, either by banks of Sargasso or coral islets, 

 of any land ever having existed there. There is no ap- 

 parent reason why this place, except from some special 

 cause peculiar to itself, should be more desolate than 

 any other in the same latitude — than the deep sea on 

 the east side of Patagonia, for example. I can 

 imagine that, if the bottom of the sea should subside 

 gradually, where animal life had once abounded, 

 animal life — not that animal life, but animal life due 



Fig. 14. Skull of Sperm Whale. 



interminably long time might not have the same 

 effect is another question, which, whatever way it 

 may be answered, would not affect my explanation of 

 the cause of the absence of the Sperm Whale from 

 such spots."* I am indebted to the kindness of 

 Chas. J. Palmer, Esq., of Great Yarmouth, for the 

 woodcuts (figs. 12 and 13) representing the chair in 

 Yarmouth Church which is formed of part of the 

 skull of an individual of this species. 



The sub-family Ziphiina, which follows next, is, 

 perhaps, the most remarkable of the whole of 

 this interesting order. The Zipkieid Whales, as 

 they are designated, are, with one exception, 

 very rare, and until the commencement of the 

 present century, with that one exception, were 

 known to science only from their numerous re- 

 mains, found chiefly in the Crag deposits. "Since 

 that time, however," says Prof. Flower, in his 

 memoirs of this group (Trans. Zool. Soc, vol. viii. 

 p. 203), "at irregular intervals, in various and most 

 distant parts of the world, solitary individuals have 

 been caught or stranded, now amounting to about 

 thirty, which by some naturalists are referred to 

 upwards of a dozen distinct species, and to very 



"Geographical Distribution of Mammalia," pp. 211-213. 



