WHALES 



above the surface of the water. In these instances 

 a quantity of water is driven up into the air with 

 the expired breath. This, then, is what is popularly- 

 known as " blowing " or " spouting." It is simply 

 the condensed water vapour from the Whale's lungs, 

 similar to the air we sometimes forcibly discharge 

 from our own lungs on a cold frosty morning. 



The tail of a fish is vertical, whereas the tails of 

 Whales, Porpoises and Dolphins are horizontal. 

 This, no doubt, is for the purpose of giving greater 

 power in propelling the body more rapidly to the 

 surface of the water. If Whales were direct de- 

 scendants of fishes, Nature would not have erred so 

 gravely as to take away their gills and substitute 

 lungs, which are of lesser service than gills would be 

 to a Whale in its watery environment. The fact that 

 whales still retain vestiges of hind limbs, and traces 

 of a hairy covering, are sufficient evidence that their 

 remote ancestors were terrestrial or semi-terrestrial 

 animals. In the Whale we have one of the most 

 specialised of all living mammals. The time it must 

 have taken to evolve a huge animal with limbs into a 

 creature with the present form of the Whale can 

 be better imagined than described. It was at one 

 time thought that whales were the descendants of 

 a primitive type of ungulate or hoofed mammal. 

 There is now some evidence to show that modern 

 whales are closely related to a primitive and extinct 

 carnivorous animal known as a ^euglodont which 

 existed during the Eocene division of the Tertiary 



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