1898-99.] 493 



2/ February. 



The Field Club held a successful and well-attended meeting 

 in the Museum on Tuesday evening, 21st February, William 

 Gray, M.R.I.A., in the chair. This was the fourth meeting of 

 the Session at which Professor Symington, F.R.S.E., of Queen's 

 College, Belfast, delivered a lecture on ''Whales ; the significance 

 of their structure and development in connection with theories 

 as to their origin." The Professor stated that in their struggle 

 for existence numerous mammals belonging to widely-separated 

 orders have been driven to spend a portion of their lives under 

 water. Such was the case with the seal, water vole, beaver, and 

 hippopotamus. In other groups the adaptation to aquatic life 

 is complete, and the animal has lost the power of maintaining 

 itself on land and spends its whole life in water. To this group 

 the whale belongs. In popular imagination they are fishes, but 

 the zoologist finds that they possess all the essential features of 

 a mammal. They breathe by lungs, their blood is warm, their 

 young are born alive, and are nourished after birth by milk 

 from the mother. If we are to judge of success in life by size 

 of development, the life adopted by the whale has proved the 

 wisdom of their choice. The lecturer showed lantern views of 

 the principal kinds of whales and pointed out their leading 

 characters. Land mammals always possess hair, but in the 

 whale the disappearance of hair and development of blubber 

 under the skin are to be regarded as adaptations to an aquatic 

 life, as facilitating the movement of the animal in the water, 

 while the subcutaneous fat prevents the radiation of heat from 

 the body better than a covering of hair. In a few whales hairs 

 are found on the upper lip during early life, but this moustache 

 disappears when they grow to manhood. Certain anatomical 

 peculiarities were then pointed out, which lead Professor 

 Kiikenthal to believe that the toothed whales and whalebone 

 whales have a different origin. The toothed whales have 

 sprung from some primitive mammals, whose backs were 

 covered with a hard exoskeleton, while the ancestors of the 



