1904.] on the Progress of ^larine Biology 551 



their bodies are evidence of the energy with which their victims 

 defend themselves with their suckers, often armed with formidable 

 talons. 



The Orca, provided with a more compact dentition, pursues the 

 dolphins, of which it makes scarcely more than three or four 

 mouthfuls, showing thus a remarkable power of digestion. 



The dolphins themselves are more eclectic, and I have found in 

 their stomachs several species of fish as well as cephaloi)ods, but in 

 both of them the characteristics special to great depths are wanting. 



The principal object which I had in view in capturing the 

 cetaceans, the knowledge of certain beings living in the abysses, has 

 been realised by the acquisition of a certain number of new and very 

 rare cephalopods, some of which are gigantic, amongst which may be 

 cited Lepidoteuthis Grimaldii, one of the most remarkable animals of 

 the sea on account of its considerable size, and also because, though it 

 is a cephalopod, it possesses scales like a fish. 



The more we know of marine biology, and the more we learn 

 from it of the links which connect the creatures spread over our 

 planet, of the interpenetration of types, such as that shown by 

 Lepidoteuthis, as well as of the vital force, the great power of repro- 

 duction, the number of individuals in certain species, and the high 

 antiquity of other forms, we seem to be justified in imagining that 

 the sea may have been the cradle of organic life when the cooling of 

 the atmosphere determined the precipitation of the waters. 



