2 1 2 MAMMALS. 



They have been stranded or captured on our coasts, amongst other places,* at Teigniuouth, 

 Whitstable Bay, mouth of the Thames, coast of Essex, coast of Kent, Holderness, Hid], Limekilns 

 in the Frith of Forth, Thiu'so, and not mifrequentlj' at the Orkneys. 



Dr. Gray quotes the following letter from Walderwick, on the coast of Suffolk, March 7, 1788 : 

 "After a hard gale of wind northerlj^ no less than twelve male Whales, which undoubtedly came 

 out of the Northern Ocean, were towed and driven on shore all dead, and in a high state of putre- 

 faction, excepting one. Six were found upon the coast of Kent ; two on the coast of Holland ; 

 one at the Hope Point in the River Thames was the only one seen alive, he ran aground, and 

 smothered himself in the mud, and was afterwards made a show of in the Greenland Docks." f 



On running over the above localities I observe that almost every place that has been above 

 mentioned as a favourite resort of the Sperm Wbales, although out of soundings, has claims to 

 be considered the site of submerged land. The islands in the Polynesia, which are its special 

 feeding-ground, are the beacons left by the submerged Pacific continent. In pure deep seas 

 animal life is usually scarce, and the absence of breeding-ground is probably the chief cause of it ; 

 but this only applies to a certain kind of animals, those which require a bottom on which to 

 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 distribution of the Sperm Whale may in some way be connected with the geological 

 antecedents of the ocean it inhabits. I think it not imj^robable that the site of a submerged land 

 may swarm with life which originally proceeded, or was dependent on it, long after it has been 

 in the deep bosom of the ocean buried. The Sargasso Seas, which swarm with Eolid^ and 

 Crustacea, are examples of this life ; it is not invariably either present or absent in deep water, 

 and it is its presence or its absence which is instructive. Those animals which required 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 multiplied correspondingly. In one of the maps in Lieu- 

 tenant Maury's book, already cited, there is a space of sea opposite the western coast of South 

 America, and lying between Patagonia and New Zealand, marked " Desolate region, distinguished 

 by the absence of animal or vegetable life;" — no Sperm Whales here, — nothing for them to feed 

 vqDon, — and no symptoms, either by banlcs of Sargasso or coral islets, of any land ever having existed 

 there. There is no apparent 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 in some way to it — might continue to linger over it long after it had passed beyond the depth 

 at which it coidd 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 

 wovdd certainly not sjDread to a spot where there was nothing for them to feed ujjon. Again, 

 animal life could not begin to feed upon animal life until vegetable life had previously prepared 

 the way, by providing food for the animals whieli were to furnish food for others ; and vegetable life 



* Gray in " Proceed. Zool. Soc. 1864," p. 231. 



t Letter ill Sni Joseph B.s.nks" copy of the "Phil. Trans." in the British Museum. 



