18 inches long by 6 wide; the dorsal also very small, 1 foot high; the 
general colour gray; dark above, and gradually becoming whitish be¬ 
neath. This beautiful and elegantly-shaped animal possessed all the 
brilliancy of tint and softness which characterises the cetacea. It is the 
only known individual of a single species which seems to connect the 
dolphins with the whales. It would appear very rare; and of its habitat, 
disposition, and habits, we know nothing.” (See plate.) 
Speculating on the causes which may operate to draw the habitual 
occupants of the lower depths of the sea to the surface, we may imagine 
several—there may be causes connected with the propagation of the 
species—(parasitical tormentors have already been alluded to); but the 
most potent influence which can be supposed to act on such fishes, is that 
arising from electric or volcanic phenomena. Yarrel observes that such 
fish as inhabit the bottom of waters have a low standard of respiration, 
and a high degree of muscular irritability. In such animals there is rea¬ 
son to believe there also exists great susceptibility of any change in the 
electrical relations of the medium in which they reside. The restless 
movements of eels, loaches, and other ground fish, during thunder storms, 
are well known. There was a remarkable instance in the almost total 
destruction of the haddocks of the North Sea, about sixty years ago, of 
the agency of some mysterious cause at work beneath the waters, inap¬ 
preciable, except in its terrible effects, on certain of their inhabitants. 
Vessels sailing to Archangel in 1789 describe their passing, for hundreds 
of miles, through a sea covered with the floating dead haddocks. The 
records of the fossiliferous rocks also testify to similar general destruc¬ 
tion occurring suddenly and at once to whole races of fishes, whose un¬ 
mutilated remains, quietly entombed in the subsequent gradual deposition 
of their rocky sepulchres, assure us such mortality was not produced by 
violent mechanical causes, but occurred during the usual tranquillity of 
those ancient waters, thereby verifying the declaration of the Psalmist, 
who, speaking of the animal races in the 104th Psalm, continues in words 
significant of successive creations :— 
“ Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled : thou takest away their breath, they die, 
and return to their dust. 
“Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the 
earth.” 
It is quite in harmony with the hypothesis, of the lower strata of ocean 
waters being the habitat of unthought of creatures, whose rare appear¬ 
ance at the surface is induced by some common cause, that all the noted 
