Evolution and External Appearance 



NE NIGHT aboard the Willem Barendsz, I was woken in my bunk 

 by two of the ship's officers, who asked me to settle a heated 

 argument. 'Doctor, Doctor, please wake up and tell us something !' 

 'If I can,' I replied, still groping blindly. 'What is it you want to know?' 

 'Can you tell us how many legs a whale has?' they pressed me. 'Five,' I 

 told them, 'four normal ones and an extra one for hitting you over the 

 head if you worry them at night.' My answer seemed to satisfy them, for 

 they left me to catch up on my sleep. But was it really conect, or only my 

 means of getting rid of them? 



To find out, we had best dress in warm clothes, put on an overall, and 

 get up on deck. Ear muffs well down, lined waders pulled right up 

 (make sure they have hobnails, or you will break your neck), we emerge 

 from our cabins. The great winches amidships have just dug their claws 

 into one of the giants, and have pulled it up the slipway on a steel cable. 

 The whistle has gone for a half-hour break, the work has stopped, and we 

 can count the whale's legs at our leisure. 



A superficial inspection of its enormous bulk will convince us that it 

 has no real legs at all. True, it has two small pectoral fins (flippers) in 

 front, but it has nothing at all resembling legs -just a powerful tail, its 

 tip flattened into flukes which stick out quite a bit on either side of the 

 body. Actually, we cannot see much of the flukes here on deck, for the 

 whalers have hacked part of them off to make their work easier. But where 

 are the hind legs? To find them, we must make a fairly deep incision in 

 the body. If we can locate the correct place, just a little anterior to the 

 anal vent, we shall find a slender bone some 12 inches long, hidden 

 amidst masses of muscle tissue on either side of the body. Occasionally 

 there is a fairly pronounced process in the middle of the bone (Fig. 21). 

 If we remove and clean the bone, we find that another small bone may 

 be attached to it, at least in the Blue, Fin, Sperm and some Humpback 

 Whales (Fig. 22). The second bone is absent in Sei Whales and Little 

 Piked Whales. 



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