266 



THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM MAGAZINE. 



A \X^hale of Bygone Days. 



By Professor T. Thomson Flynn, D.Sc. University of Tasmania. 



ONE of the saving gracesjof civilisa- 

 tion lies in this, that while man has 

 much degenerated as regards many 

 of his faculties — he has lost to a great ex- 

 tent the powers of sight, hearing, and 

 smell — he still retains his gift of im- 

 agination. And one of the most stimu- 

 lating methods of ap]ilying this gift 

 lies in reconstructing the bodily forms 

 and methods of life of animals which 

 are long since extinct and which may 

 have been the ancestors of those in- 

 teresting living beings which form 

 man's companions on the earth's sur- 

 face to-day. It is obvious that no liv- 

 ing being can exist for very long if its 

 environment is unfavoural^le. It must 

 be capable of responding to any ex- 

 acting requirements which its condition 

 of life may impose upon it. There are, 

 perhaps, no living animals which have 

 responded more to their environment 

 and mode of life than have the whales 

 — animals which have always been 

 objects of interest and wonderment to 

 the observer. The monstrous pro- 

 portions to which some of them attain, 

 their comparative rarity, the vivid im- 

 pression of the story of Jonah, and the 

 association of their ca]5ture with stories 

 of human hardship, strength, and dar- 

 ing in the wind lashed seas of the "Roar- 

 ing Forties " are all ideas which have 

 been associated in product ing this effect 

 on the " Man in the Street." 



An examination of the body struc- 

 ture of whales has long ago sho\An us 

 that they have descended from land 

 animals. There are some Avho have 

 suggested that their ancestors were 

 reptiles, but it is almost universally 

 agreed that these ])rimeval ancestors 

 belonged to the group known as mam- 

 mals . Most of the larger animals on the 

 earth's surface to-day belong to this 

 mammalian group, which includes four 

 footed, air breathing animals M'ith a 

 covering of hair and which suckle their 

 young. The ordinary df)g may be 

 taken as a typical example. 



Removing the remains of the fossil whale from 

 the cliffs at Table Cape, near Wynyard, 

 Tasmania. 



There could hardly be two creatures 

 more different at first sight than a 

 whale and a dog. Yet the funda- 

 mental resemblances are there. The 

 whale, just as the dog, breathes by 

 means of lungs. It has to visit the sur- 

 face of the water ])eriodically to renew 

 its air su]3ply. The whale calf is born 

 and nourished in exactly the same A\ay 

 as is the young of the dog. 



Two of the most conspicuoiis differ- 

 ences between whales and the ordinary 

 land mammal lie in the absence of hair 

 on the former and the arrangement of 

 their liml)s. 



It is usuallv believed that whales are 



