3i62 The Zoologist — April, 1873. 



males of the right whales seem to have no conflicts with each 

 other. Captain Pease had seen males struggling with each other, 

 and often found their bodies scarred with the imprints of the rival's 

 teeth ; the scars showing their origin very distinctly by their 

 form — the distance apart of the wounds answering to the intervals 

 of the teeth. The great superiority in the size of the males 

 among the sperm whales is just what would be expected in a 

 species where the males struggled in the combats of rivals. The 

 gain in size under the influence of these conflicts of the males is 

 generally limited in land animals within pretty narrow bounds. 

 There are probably no land animals where the male is double the 

 weight of the female, yet the male sperm whale would seem to 

 excel the female by more than this proportion. This extreme 

 development of the males occurs also among the Otaridae as well 

 as among naany groups of fishes, so it would seem as if there was 

 some reason why the influences tending to limit size were less 

 active in the sea than on the land. The reason for the greater 

 freedom to acquire size in the sea is undoubtedly to be found in 

 the less weight of bodies in that element, the effect of which is 

 shown as well in the structures of man as in the structures of 

 nature; the ship exceeds all vehicles for land transportation for 

 the same reason, and in something like the same proportion, that 

 marine animals, when size is the advantage, exceed terrestrial 

 forms. 



The conflicts between the males of sperm whales lead to great 

 damage to the lower jaw ; the evidence goes to show that at least 

 two per cent, are crooked more or less, and one in several hundred 

 very badly bent by these struggles. There are two specimens in 

 the small museum at Nantucket which are singularly contorted ; 

 one of them is bent laterally into one turn of a spiral. Captain 

 Pease tells me that he found one that was bent sideways at right 

 angles to the proper posilion and firmly fixed there, seeming to be 

 a permanency in this singular place. In fighting, the males rush 

 at each other with open jaws, and strike in passing. The great 

 speed and power of these massive creatures must lead to the most 

 serious results from these collisions. Capt. Pease found a sperm 

 whale nearly dead on the water with the lower jaw hanging by a 

 single band of ligament a few inches through. The creature was 

 being devoured by sharks and crustaceans, but the wrench which 

 had crippled this whale must have come from one of his kind. 



