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While, on the other hand, the produced rostral form of the snout, the long symphysis, and the low coronary process of the mandible are approximations to the cetacean form of those parts.
Half hippopotamus, half seal, yet in no way related to either, something between a pachyderm and cetacean, the dugong is a herbivorous marine mammal, commonly known as "the sea cow," because of its resemblance in some particulars to that useful domesticated animal.
A somewhat similar fact was discovered at Laugerie-Basse and, by a strange coincidence, certain tribes of North America of the present clay preserve the bone of a mastodon or of a cetacean in their buts as a protection to their homes. From Paleolithic times men were in the habit of cutting celts or hatchets in chalk, bitumen, and other fragile substances, which were certainly of no practical use.
I merely observed that in the upper layers, the water was always colder over shallows than in the open sea. On January 25, the ocean being completely deserted, the Nautilus spent the day on the surface, churning the waves with its powerful propeller and making them spurt to great heights. Under these conditions, who wouldn't have mistaken it for a gigantic cetacean?
"And just for one day, would it displease you to return to your fisherman's trade and add this cetacean to the list of those you've already hunted down?" "It wouldn't displease me one bit." "All right, you can try your luck!" "Thank you, sir," Ned Land replied, his eyes ablaze. "Only," the captain went on, "I urge you to aim carefully at this animal, in your own personal interest."
Hunting yields them hardly any game, fishing is almost equally unproductive of results; they are obliged to depend upon the storms which now and then fling some huge cetacean on their shores, and upon such salvage they fall tooth and nail, not even taking the trouble to cook the flesh.
In the apparently complete absence of hinder limbs, and in the characters of the vertebral column, the Zeuglodon lies on the cetacean side of the boundary line; so that upon the whole, the Zeuglodonts, transitional as they are, are conveniently retained in the cetacean order.
In the second place, the horny matter on the palates of the dugong and manatee has not, even initially, that "strainer" action, which is the characteristic function of the Cetacean "baleen." There is another very curious structure, the origin or the disappearance of which it seems impossible to account for on the hypothesis of minute indefinite variations.
A warning shout from Ben called the attention of everybody who had been watching the fight to a more imminent danger to the ship. The giant cetacean in falling to its death had struck the towing cable and snapped it under its huge bulk as if the stout hawser had been a pack thread. "We are adrift," shouted Captain Barrington, rushing forward with Captain Hazzard by his side.
"I want master to look." I rose, went, and leaned on my elbows before the panes and watched. In a full electric light, an enormous black mass, quite immovable, was suspended in the midst of the waters. I watched it attentively, seeking to find out the nature of this gigantic cetacean. But a sudden thought crossed my mind. "A vessel!" I said, half aloud.
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