June 9, 1904] 



NA TURE 



133 



THE PROGRESS OF MARINE BIOLOGY. i 



OR some few years past the advances made by ocean- 

 ography have been very marked, thanks to the rivalry 

 which has grown up between different peoples. The English, 

 the Americans, the Germans, the Belgians, the Scandin- 

 avians, and the Russians have made great efforts in this 

 direction, while France, Italy, Austria and Portugal have 

 not remained outside of the movement. Consequentlv this 

 science in its principal features is already pretty well known. 



But oceanography touches many departments of science, 

 and amongst them marine biology is for the moment the 

 least advanced, because it requires researches of a particu- 

 larly difficult kind. It is to it that I have more particularly 

 devoted my attention, and it is of it that I propose to speak 

 this evening. 



From the reports of many important expeditions, you are 

 already well aware how universally distributed life is, even 

 in the greatest depths of the sea ; nevertheless, the means 

 employed in this kind of investigation have been, as a rule, 

 too primitive to furnish very complete results. In my own 

 personal oceanographical work I have, for long, employed 

 new means and methods, which attract different groups of 

 marine animals, each according to its own characteristic 

 instincts, and I have been able in this way to add to our 

 knowledge of zoology. 



It is not, however, enough to collect. We must also 

 endeavour to penetrate the mystery of the laws which 

 regulate life in the medium of the sea, so different in almost 

 all respects from that of the air. For this the oceanographer 

 requires the collaboration of the biologist and the 

 physiologist. 



Not unfrequently unexpected circumstances open to the 

 observer new horizons, to be afterwards explored by science. 

 It is thus that, finding mvself among the islands of the 

 Azores, to which my oceanographical researches have 

 frequently conducted me, I assisted at the capture of a 

 cachalot, or sperm whale, bv the whalers of the countrv ; 

 simple peasants, who launch their well appointed whale 

 boats the moment that the appearance of a fish is signalled 

 by the look-out man, who is continually stationed on a 

 little hill in their neighbourhood, and I have seen how 

 these mammals go to the intermediate depths of the ocean 

 in search of the great cephalopods which form their ex- 

 clusive nourishment. When the cachalot in question came 

 to endure the convulsions of death, its stomach rejected 

 enormous fragments of the prey which it had captured 

 during its last sounding. 



It is in this way that I have recognised the existence of 

 a fauna remarkable for the size and the number of its 

 components, relegated to the large space which separates 

 the surface from the great depths, but the organisation of 

 which prevents its rising to the regions illuminated by the 

 light of the sun, and probably also its descending to the 

 bottom, when this lies beyond a certain depth. 



What other groups of living animals inhabit these 

 regions? We know nothing of them yet, but we may 

 believe that they abound, because beings as powerful as 

 these cephalopods require much nourishment. 



So soon as I understood the importance of researches 

 capable of throwing light on the life which exists in regions 

 inaccessible to our ordinary means, I established on board 

 of my ship all the equipments of a whaler, namely, three 

 whale boats, each carrying a harpoon gun, several harpoons, 

 a lance and a thousand metres of line, and I added to the 

 complement of my ship an experienced Scottish whaler. 

 The results of this organisation have left nothing to be 

 desired. The cetaceans obtained already form an interest- 

 ing collection, and their stomachs were abundantly furnished 

 with these cephalopods. 



In the Mediterranean, where previously the cetaceans had 

 never been hunted, I have taken several individuals of the 

 species Grampus griseus, Orca gladiator, Globiceps mclas, 

 and I lost a Baletioptera musculus. In the Atlantic Ocean 

 I have taken several Globiceps and Grampus, as well as a 

 very rare specimen of dolphin, Steno rostratus. I have 

 also lost a cetacean of moderate size but of undetermined 

 species. 



1 A Discourse delivered at ihe Royal Institution on Frid,iy, May 27, by 

 H.S H. Albert I., Prince of Monaco. 



The attack of cetaceans, especially when they are large, 

 causes the harpooneering novice an emotion which 

 diminishes his adresse ; and even for a good shot the use 

 of the harpoon gun is very difficult when there is the least 

 motion of the sea. A school of animals has been sighted. 

 Their presence has been revealed by their blowing, or by 

 the regular reappearance of their backs at a greater or less 

 distance from the ship, which is then steered towards them. 

 If the animals are of the species already mentioned, the 

 movement of the propeller does not trouble them ; on the 

 contrary, they may almost always be seen to come and take 

 up station near the stern as if retained by curiosity. But 

 some species, and among them the cachalot, seem to distrust 

 this neighbourhood, and care must be taken that they do 

 not hear even the too marked sound of oars ; indeed, in 

 such cases it is preferable to use paddles rather than oars. 



The animals have found in the depth a favourable hunt- 

 ing ground, and they do not leave it. They sound to this 

 depth during a time which varies from ten to forty-five 

 minutes, according to the species, and come to the surface 

 again to breathe during four or five minutes. These alter- 

 nations repeat themselves, sometimes for several hours con- 

 secutively, almost on the same spot, with occasional pauses, 

 which seem to be those of repose. It is when the cetaceans 

 appear in this way at the surface that the nearest whale- 



NO. 1806, VOL. 70I 



Kli.. I.— lireaking up a Sp rm Whale. 



boat should make every endeavour to come up with them 

 before they again disappear, and so soon as one of them 

 gives a sufficiently good presentation of the part of its body 

 near the head, the harpooneer fires his shot. But this critical 

 moment seldom arrives until after several hours of pursuit, 

 even when the animals are full of confidence and allow the 

 whalers to get well in amongst them. Most frequently, and 

 in the most favourable circumstances, it happens that during 

 the three or four seconds which the emergence of the animal 

 at each of his eight or ten respirations lasts, the present- 

 ation is bad, or the movement of the sea has destroyed 

 the aim ; it is then necessary to wait until after the next 

 sound. 



If the animals sighted pursue a fixed route with any 

 speed, it is useless to attempt the attack; it is impossible 

 to come up with them because they are then on passage. 

 Once I followed a large Balenoptera for six hours with my 

 ship. He travelled about thirty miles in an absolutely 

 straight line, which shows that the marine animals possess 

 a sense of orientation more remarkable than that of the 

 migratory birds, because these can always see the ground 

 above which they travel. 



.Kt last, close to the boat, a powerful blow like a jet of 



