XV 



ON WHALES, PAST AND PEESENT, AND THEIE 

 PKOBABLE OEIGIN 1 



FEW natural groups present so many remarkable, very 

 obvious, and easily appreciated illustrations of several of the 

 most important general laws which appear to have determined 

 the structure of animal bodies, as that selected for my 

 lecture this evening. We shall find the effects of the two 

 opposing forces that of heredity or conformation to ancestral 

 characters, and that of adaptation to changed environment, 

 whether brought about by the method of natural selection 

 or otherwise distinctly written in almost every part of their 

 structure. Scarcely anywhere in the animal kingdom do we 

 see so many cases of the persistence of rudimentary and 

 apparently useless organs, those marvellous and suggestive 

 phenomena which at one time seemed hopeless enigmas, 

 causing despair to thdse who tried to unravel their meaning, 

 looked upon as mere will -of -the -wisps, but now eagerly 

 welcomed as beacons of true light, casting illuminating beams 

 upon the dark and otherwise impenetrable paths through 

 which the organism has travelled on its way to reach the goal 

 of its present condition of existence. 



It is chiefly to these rudimentary organs of the Cetacea 

 and to what we may learn from them that I propose to call 

 your attention. In each case the question may well be asked, 

 granted that they are, as they appear to be, useless, or nearly 

 so, to their present possessors, insignificant, imperfect, in 

 fact rudimentary, as compared with the corresponding or 

 homologous parts of other animals, are they survivals, 



1 Lecture at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, 25th May 1883. 



P 



