. The Australian Museum magazine. Natural history. 266 THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM MAGAZINE. A \X^hale of Bygone Days. By Professor T. Thomson Flynn, 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
. The Australian Museum magazine. Natural history. 266 THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM MAGAZINE. A \X^hale of Bygone Days. By Professor T. Thomson Flynn, 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 producting this effect on the " Man in the ; 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 whi
Size: 1169px × 2136px
Photo credit: © Library Book Collection / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectnaturalhistory, booky
