1894- NOTES AND COMMENTS. 173 



assigning its long neck to the inherited effects of reaching up to high 

 branches; Darwin played it for Natural Selection; Herbert Spencer 

 attempted to take one trick with its neck, another v/ith its legs ; 

 Nageli used it as a trump against selection ; Weismann for selection ; 

 Professor Henry B. Orr, of Louisiana, U.S.A., in a book noticed 

 among our Reviews, plays it for a system of his own. " The giraffe," 

 he says, " seems to present the most remarkable illustration of the 

 lengthening of the bones as the result of the frequent repetition of 

 shocks. As is well-known, this animal feeds on the foliage of 

 trees. From the earliest youth of the species and the earliest youth 

 of the individual, it must have been stretching upwards for food, and, 

 as is the custom of such quadrupeds, it must have constantly raised 

 itself off its fore feet, and as it dropped must have received a shock 

 that made itself felt from the hoofs through the legs and vertical 

 neck to the head. In the hind legs the shock would not be felt." We 

 are less sorry now that the giraffe is becoming extinct. 



But, seriously, this fashion of dealing with the problems of 

 evolution is the most degenerate formalism. No doubt the ingenious 

 schoolman of the middle ages who introduced the burning question 

 of the number of angels who could dance on the point of a needle, 

 introduced it seriously to bring a metaphysical argument to an exact 

 issue. But the example was taken up and argued through centuries 

 till memory of the original question has been lost in laughter at the 

 folly of early logicians. Let us make a concerted effort ; let the 

 giraffe be a name not to be named by the votaries of science. Else 

 the laughter of our descendants will be at those word-spinners of the 

 nineteenth century who, having seen no giraffe (save perchance in a 

 menagerie), indulged in copious controversy as to whether or no it 

 distorted its neck and legs by bumping and stretching. 



A Whale-Fight in the South Atlantic. 



Mr. R. Lydekker, who has recently returned from his journey 

 to Argentina, favours us with the account of an interesting incident 

 of his outward voyage. It is to be hoped that some of our readers, 

 who may have witnessed a similar scene, will be able to throw light 

 on points obscure to our correspondent, who writes as follows : — 



" It was on the afternoon of September gth in last year, about half- 

 past four, that 1 was standing, in company with a lady fellow- 

 passenger, on the poop of the Royal Mail Company's s.s. " Magdalena," 

 watching the taking of soundings, the vessel being then off the coast 

 of Minas Geraes, Brazil, at no great distance from the islands of Los 

 Abrolhos, in long. 39° W., lat. 18° S. The soundings had just been 

 completed when the attention of my companion and myself was 

 attracted by the appearance of a whale and some other creatures at a 

 distance of apparently something less than a quarter-of-a-mile from 

 the ship. The whale was a ' finner,' of no very great size, and was 



