Notices of the proceedings at the meetings of the members of the Royal Institution of Great Britain with abstracts of the discourses . t behind them a track of ten or fifteen kilometres in lengthover which they have towed the boats. I have said that apart from the interest which each species ofcetacean offers of itself (and it appears that many of them are hardlyknown at all), it is in the first place the contents of their stomachswhich occupy us. The species which I have taken differ much in thenature of their prey, and their mouths are armed right whale is content to abso
Notices of the proceedings at the meetings of the members of the Royal Institution of Great Britain with abstracts of the discourses . t behind them a track of ten or fifteen kilometres in lengthover which they have towed the boats. I have said that apart from the interest which each species ofcetacean offers of itself (and it appears that many of them are hardlyknown at all), it is in the first place the contents of their stomachswhich occupy us. The species which I have taken differ much in thenature of their prey, and their mouths are armed right whale is content to absorb the Plankton composed of ex-tremely small animals, which in some regions form a compact mass,a real cloud ; and in order to keep out objects too large to passdown its very small throat, its jaws are furnished with the wellknown and valuable whalebone, which acts as a sieve. The Grampus, the Globiceps and the Cachalot, penetrate to adepth probably much greater in search of cephalopods, and theypossess a dentition specially organised for seizing the gelatinous fleshof the cephalopods. The scars which they bear over the whole of. Fig. 6.—Part of the Fin of a Gigantic Cephaloixxl. 1904.] on the Progress of Marine Biology 551 their bodies are evidence of the energy with which their victimsdefend themselves with their suckers, often armed with formidabletalons. The Orca, provided with a more compact dentition, pursues thedolphins, of which it makes scarcely more than three or fourmouthfuls, showing thus a remarkable power of digestion. The dolphins themselves are more eclectic, and I have found intheir stomachs several species of fish as well as cephalopods, but inboth of them the characteristics special to great depths are wanting. The principal object which I had in view in capturing thecetaceans, the knowledge of certain beings living in the abysses, hasbeen realised by the acquisition of a certain number of new and veryrare cephalopods, some of which are gigantic, amongst wh
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