INTRODUCTION 



era of whaling, so it gave to the scientist undreamed- 

 of opportunities for the study of cetaceans. Until 

 shore stations were established, few indeed were the 

 naturalists who had examined more than five or six 

 whales during their entire lives. These carcasses were 

 usually of whales which had met with some accident 

 at sea and had been cast up on the beach; almost al- 

 ways the animals had been dead for days before they 

 came under the notice of a competent scientific ob- 

 server, and had lost much of their original proportions 

 and color. A whale's body begins to generate gases 

 at an astounding rate as soon as the animal is dead, 

 and within a very few hours becomes so swelled and 

 distorted that the true proportions are almost lost. 

 Even trained naturalists did not always take this fact 

 into consideration, and their descriptions and figures 

 were consequently notable chiefly for their inaccu- 

 racy. 



It is only within a very few years that it has been 

 generally recognized how rapidly cetaceans change 

 color when dead, and often in scientific papers whales 

 are described as "black" which are never black in life. 

 By far the greater number of whales and dolphins 

 have various shades of slate, or gray, on the upper 

 parts, and if exposed to the sun for a few hours these 

 portions turn jet black. 



Again, there is in all cetaceans great variation 

 among individuals of the same species, and whales 

 from the same school or "pod" may differ widely in 

 proportions and general color. Some may be long 

 and slender, others short and thick; one may have 



