1 1 9 4 THE CETACEANS 



all its congeners, while its whole bearing indicates its superiority to all the other 

 Cetaceans. It glides over the surface of the ocean, occasionally displaying its 

 entire length. When it respires, the volume of its vaporous breath ascends to a 

 height which reveals at once to the observer the presence of that leviathan of the 

 deep, whose capture baffles the practical skill of the most experienced whalers. 

 When ' rounding ' to descend to the depths below, it throws its ponderous flukes 

 high above the waves, with a swoop that is well in keeping with its matchless 

 strength and vigor. ' ' The invention of explosive harpoons propelled from powerful 

 guns has now rendered the capture of Sibbald's whale a comparatively-easy task, 

 and it is regularly hunted from the factory at Hammerfest. A specimen measuring 

 eighty-five feet in length yielded ninety barrels of oil. 



The Pliocene deposits of Belgium and the eastern coast of England 

 S Wh T yield remains of several kinds of fin whales, and likewise of a hump- 

 back, all of which appear to be more or less closely related to the 

 various living species. Other whales from the Pliocene deposits of Europe consti- 

 tute an extinct genus Cetotherium which, while evidently nearly allied to the 

 rorquals, exhibits certain peculiar features in the structure of the skull whereby it 

 departs less widely from the ordinary Mammalian type. 



