Whales, &c.

Cetacea Introduction

The present Volume of the Naturalist’s Library is dedicated to an order of animals, which in point of interest yields to none presented to our contemplation in the whole range of animated nature.

The monarch of the deep is, in regard of dimensions at least, the monarch also of creation; the largest and most formidable of land animals shrinking into utter insignificance when brought into comparison with his prodigious hulk. The vast and expensive preparations which are made for the capture of the whale, and the excitement and perils attendant upon the adventure, not only render it an object of great commercial importance, but throw around it an air of something like chivalrous interest, in which every one must instinctively participate. But the main interest of our subject is to be found in its scientific investigation. If we pass from mere ignorant wonder to comprehensive and accurate observation, we shall find in this order of animals ample materials for exciting and gratifying the most enlightened curiosity, for expanding in no common degree, our conceptions of the harmony and beauty of the works of nature, and for raising to the highest pitch our admiration of the inexhaustible wisdom of the great Creator.

The very position which the Cetacea occupy in the animal kingdom, forms in itself a subject of the deepest wonder and astonishment.

Our readers are probably aware that of the four divisions into which Cuvier, the great master of natural science, has divided the animal kingdom, the first consists of the vertebrate. The vertebrate, which include the animals of the most perfect structure, are again subdivided into four great classes, forming a natural descending series beautifully simple and complete; being 1st, Mammalia or Quadrupeds,—2dly, Birds,—3dly, Reptiles,—and 4thly, Fishes. Each of these classes is characterized by a diversity of locomotive powers, which depends on the quantity of inspiration, inasmuch as this is the grand source whence the muscular system derives its irritability and strength. The efficiency of respiration again, depends upon the relative amount of blood which is forced into the respiratory organs in a given space of time, and the relative amount of oxygen which operates upon the circulating fluid. Now, the respiratory organs in the first class of the vertebrate, viz. the Mammalia, are of the most perfect kind, and perform their functions under very favourable circumstances,—the circulating fluid, at each inspiration, being brought into immediate contact with the oxygen of the air. The same is true in a still higher degree respecting birds. But the case is widely different with the two remaining classes. In reptiles the respiratory organs are themselves greatly deficient, compared with the same organs in the two higher classes; and in fishes the difference is still more conspicuous, inasmuch as they have no lungs at all, but gills, which execute their functions through the medium of water, their blood being thus acted upon only by the portion of oxygen which is contained in that fluid. From this diversity of structure results, in the words of Cuvier,

the four different kinds of motion for which the four classes of vertebrated animals are more particularly designed, quadrupeds, birds, &c.

Many specific characters distinguish these four classes of the vertebrates from each other, and especially the two which constitute the extremes, viz. quadrupeds and fishes. The former are viviparous in their mode of reproduction, and suckle their young; which circumstance being peculiar to this division, they hence derive their ordinary appellation of Mammalia; a distinction the surest, as well as the most apparent, of all external characters. The latter again are oviparous, and deposit the countless millions of their spawn in the sheltered creek or the shallow brook. Quadrupeds are warm-blooded animals, having lungs contained in a regular chest, and are more or less covered with hair or wool to protect them from change of temperature; but fishes are cold-blooded, and their respiration is effected by branchiæ, which consist of laminæ, suspended on arches, between the head and body, through which the water entering by the mouth is allowed to escape, and so purifies the blood for renewed circulation. On their surface scales almost invariably take the place of the warm and woolly covering: and finally, for it is unnecessary to carry the distinction farther, the former, as their name implies, move upon the earth with a firm tread, endowed with two limbs belonging to the anterior, and two to the posterior extremity; whilst fish are totally deprived of these, their only representatives being the fins, and they effect their movements through the liquid element mainly by means of their tail striking the water vertically and alternately from right to left.

These general observations will suffice to enable our readers to understand distinctly the singular position which is occupied by the Cetacea in the classification of the animal kingdom. While they inhabit the water like fishes, and while in their mode of progression through their common element and in some of their more obvious external characters, they seem to claim kindred with the other inhabitants of the deep, yet, in every essential respect, they are unequivocally marked as members not of this the fourth and last class, but of the first and most remote class of the vertebratæ, viz. the Mammalia. Fish, as we have seen, are produced from spawn, and after the lapse of weeks or months, emerge from the gravel and the egg, where they had lain long neglected by the individuals who there deposited and deserted them; but the whales are brought alive into the world, and the cub is nourished for months by its mother’s milk, and disports itself around her in playful affection, like the fawn or the lamb in the sunny glade. Fish are cold-blooded—their circulating fluid being only exposed to the water, in the gills; but the whale has no gills, nor any thing resembling them; on the contrary, it has true lungs, in a great bony chest, into which the air is freely admitted—not indeed by the mouth, but by a peculiar apparatus to be afterwards explained, and through which the animal breathes the pure air of heaven like other mammalia, and is thus enabled to maintain the warm temperature of its body even in the midst of the icy seas. Fish never breathe; and if removed from the water, and brought into the air, immediately die; whereas the Cetacea, if deprived of air and confined under water, are speedily and literally drowned.

The Cete, therefore, are not fishes, but true mammalia. Not only in their internal organization, but, to a great extent, in their osseous structure, they approximate to the quadrupeds or the mammalia of the land; and it is not a little interesting to trace the wonderful adaptations by which an animal of such a structure and habit of body is fitted to become the inhabitant of a different element Before we proceed, accordingly, to introduce the various genera to the notice of our readers, we propose to devote a chapter to the comparative anatomy of the order generally. By so doing we shall not only make our readers acquainted with the object of their study more effectually than it would he possible to do by any other means, but we shall prepare them for marking intelligently the specific differences which we shall have occasion to point out as we advance in our survey.

The classification which we have adopted with the view of exhibiting and treating the various species composing the Cetacea, will appear as we proceed. The series comprises a great variety of animals, descending from the greater whales to those of smaller dimensions, down to the porpoises and dolphins, some of which are not more than two feet in length.

The fossile Cete which have been discovered form an interesting addition to the subject of our investigation. The examination and classification of these remains was one of the latest and most successful labours of the illustrious Cuvier, who informs us that the fossile marine mammalia, whose species it has been possible to characterise, are not less different from those which now inhabit our coasts, than are the terrestrial fossile mammiferæ distinct from those which now inhabit the land; and for some of them, he has been even under the neccessity of establishing entirely new genera. This, he adds,

only more and more confirms the proposition to which the examination of fossile shells had already led, that it is not land animals only which have undergone a change during the revolutions of the globe; but that the inhabitants of the ocean likewise, have not withstood their effects; and that when the sea formed on our continents those prodigious deposits filled with shells which are now almost unknown, the great mammalia which it nourished were not those which people it at present; and that in spite of the strength which the immensity of their size apparently conferred upon them, they had no more power to resist the catastrophies which disturbed their element, than had the elephant, the rhinoceroses, the hippopotami, &c. to withstand those upon land; and that in the absence of the arts of man, which, of course, could not be brought to bear against them, their races must have been exterminated by the general revolutions of nature alone. (Oss. Foss. v. 398.)

Many of the fossile varieties will be incorporated into our Survey, each being introduced in connexion with those genera and species with which it stands most nearly allied.

We must not conceal from our readers that the ascertainment and description of the existing Cetacea is a work of great difficulty and uncertainty.—Cuvier says,

It is concerning large animals that the greatest errors and confusion exists; and for this reason, that we can know and distinguish only those species which we can examine under our eye and carefully compare with each other; and this remark applies especially to the great Cetacea. They astonish every one by the immensity of their dimensions, and their capture has for ages given employment to unwearied efforts of activity and courage; but except under favourable circumstances, when occasionally stranded near some intelligent naturalist, they have scarcely ever been described with accuracy, and still less been minutely examined. Thousands of mariners have captured and cut up whales, who have never accurately examined one of them; and yet it is upon their vague descriptions and figures that zoologists have endeavoured to establish the natural history of these animals. The greater number of authors, moreover, have never endeavoured to exercise their critical powers in their compilations, inasmuch as they had but few ascertained facts as the basis of their reasonings. This is the true cause why the history of the Cetacea is so meagre, and yet so full of contradiction and repetition. It would be truly an easy matter, by availing ourselves of the extraordinary figures which have been depicted, but which are the mere creatures of imagination and recollection, and also of the many confused and mutilated descriptions which have been published, and by accumulating synonyms which are mere copies of each other, to display long lists of species, but they would have no real existence in nature, and would altogether vanish before the slightest breath of criticism.

It may tend in some degree to illustrate the difficulties which are here so ably noticed, and to demonstrate their almost incredible extent, to state what has long been asserted, and never denied, that notwithstanding thousands of the Greenland whale have been annually captured by the subjects of many different nations, there never was an accurate representation of this species till it was supplied in 1809 by our illustrious countryman, Scorseby; and he, in his valuable work on the Arctic Regions, published in 1820, states that Lacépède’s figure of the true whale has not its counterpart in nature; and that his common narwhal never had any real existence. It is worthy of remark, that Lacépède’s interesting production has for long been the most popular treatise on the subject; and we regret to see that some of its worst errors of representation and description have been copied into more recent works. Some of the figures, in these popular treatises, are no more like the animals they are meant to represent, than a bull-dog is like a greyhound. Nor are the errors confined to the figure. They extend to whole genera. Loose and vague accounts of voyagers having been once incorporated into systematic works, an almost inextricable confusion has been introduced, which extorted from the capacious mind of Cuvier the exclamation,—

Toutes ces indications incomplete ne serve qu a metre les naturalists a la torture;

and a man must himself go over the ground before he can feel the full force of the sentiment Lesson gave utterance to his feelings on the point, in these words,—

What an impenetrable veil covers our knowledge of Cetacea! Groping in the dark, we advance in a field strewed with thorns.

There is doubtless then, to use the words of Scorseby, no branch of zoology so much involved as that which is entitled Cetology. Some idea of its difficulties may be formed, by considering that although Desmaret, in his Mammalogie (1820–22), enumerated sixty-two species, yet he considered no fewer than twenty-nine of them as doubtful and not established; and that Lesson, in 1828, out of eighty-four species which he classified, can vouch for the accuracy and existence of not more than fifty.

We have thought it necessary to apprize the student, in these few words, of the difficulties in which the subject is even now involved, that he may perceive it is no easy matter at once to overcome them. From the great rarity of favourable opportunities for examination, we must be cautious even in getting right; and must hesitate ere we finally reject what has previously been admitted even on insufficient and objectionable grounds. Having said this much, we entirely dismiss this part of the subject. We indulge the hope, that our little Volume may become a vade mecum to many a mariner and fisherman, and that beguiling over it the tedium of a sea voyage, he may thereby be excited to improve some of those opportunities which frequently present themselves to him, though not to us; and that by making pertinent and judicious observations, he may thus add to the stock of our interesting and important information.

We now proceed to the comparative anatomy of the Cetacea.

Comparative Anatomy of the Cetacea

It has been well remarked, that the most useful and ennobling view of natural history is unquestionably that which gives the most exalted conception of the wisdom, goodness, and power of the Creator: and the branch of natural history best calculated to assist in tracing the works of nature up to nature’s God, is probably the physiology of animals. When we bear in mind that the Cetacea are mammalia, and yet inhabitants of the mighty deep, we may safely conclude that the mechanism displayed in the adaptation of their structure to their exigencies will superabound in exquisite design and infinite wisdom. Even externally, the changes which they undergo are interesting. The extremities are curiously and greatly modified. The upper is converted from an arm or fore foot into a fin, or swimming paw, as it is more accurately called; and though at first glance the difference between these two appears immense, yet when we examine their osseous structure, the real coincidence is truly striking. The sketches a and b, in Plate i., exhibit this paw in one of the herbivorous and in one of the ordinary Cetacea, when covered with their usual integuments, and c and d exhibit the same part when deprived of these appurtenances; both of these can easily be compared with the human arm, e, and the simple unity of their structure, and the peculiar adaptation of each to its function, will, after this survey, scarcely require farther demonstration. We supply a sketch of the same part in the great whale of Greenland; and it is striking to observe, how much even this great fin supplies a representation of the osteology of the arm in man.

And as with the anterior extremities, so it is with the posterior or sacral. In the whole Cetacea they become wholly rudimental, and leave scarcely a trace behind. The progress of the change, as seen externally, which we exhibit through three successive links of the animal series, is beautiful and interesting; sketch f shows them in the amphibias—the seal; sketch g, in the herbivorous Cetacea—the Dugong of the East Indies; and sketch h, in the ordinary Cetacea, as in the common porpoise.

As already remarked, the tail of the Cetacea is peculiar; not vertical, as in fishes, but horizontal; by which great facility is given for their ascent to the surface, to which they must regularly resort for the discharge of the essential act of respiration. The agility of the lesser species, which they owe mainly to the tail, is universally known, and so powerful is it even in the most gigantic varieties, that by its means they frequently force themselves entirely out of the water. This instrument of prodigious power is formed by a concentration of the muscles and tendons on all sides of the vertebral column. Mr. Hunter remarks, that the mode in which the tail is constructed is, perhaps, as beautiful as to mechanism as any part of the animal; being principally composed of three layers of tendinous fibres. It comprises, in the larger species, in a single surface, from eighty to one hundred square feet: its length is only five or six, but its width is from eighteen to twenty-six. In its form it is flat and semilunar; its motions are rapid and universal; its strength immense. It is nearly the sole instrument of defence as well as of motion. The greatest velocity is produced by powerful strokes against the water impressed alternately upwards and downwards, but a slower motion is produced by cutting the water laterally and obliquely downwards, in a similar manner as a boat is forced along by a single oar in the operation of skulling. So rapid is the progress of the order generally, that they not inappropriately have been denominated the birds of the sea. The fins again are generally stretched out in a horizontal position; and their chief application seems to be the balancing the animal; as the moment life is extinct it falls over upon its hack. They appear also to be used in hearing off their young, and in turning and giving a direction to the velocity produced by the tail.

But not only must the Cetacea regularly resort to the surface; it is a fact that they also descend into the unfathomable depths of the ocean, and then become exposed to a pressure which it is not easy to conceive, but which forces water through the pores of the hardest wood, so as to make it ever afterwards sink like lead in the abyss. Whales, therefore, must be prepared to resist this pressure; and the integuments, though soft and flexible like the finest velvet, are so curiously constructed as to enable them effectually to do so. These, as in most other animals, are composed of three parts;

• Of the epidermis or scarf-skin, which in addition to its great smoothness, is remarkable for being covered with a mucous oily fluid, which exudes from the whole surface, though in a manner different from what we observe in fishes, which renders it remarkably slippery, and opposes every thing like maceration in water;
• Of the rete mucosum, as it is called, which confers colour on the negroe and in all races of man, and also distinctly in the whale tribe.
• Then succeeds according to the common account, first the true skin, and then the lard or blubber; the former is represented as thick and strong, and the latter is held to correspond with the subcutaneous fat in other animals.

This is the view that naturalists generally, influenced probably by analogy, have taken; it is the view taken by Ray, Tyson, Pennant, Hunter, Scorseby, Cuvier, &c. But we believe, that according to this account, the great peculiarity of the structure is disregarded, and the essential character, so much desiderated, is overlooked. According to Professor Jacob of Dublin, there is no distinction between the true skin and the blubber, and the whole is nothing more than modified skin. But he shall speak for himself,

That structure in which the oil is deposited, denominated blubber, is the true skin of the animal, modified certainly for the purpose of holding this fluid oil, but still being the true skin. Upon close examination it is found to consist of an interlacement of fibres crossing each other in every direction as in common skin, but more open in texture, to leave room for the oil. Taking the hog as an example of an animal covered with an external layer of fat, we find that we can raise the true skin without any difficulty, leaving a thick layer of cellular membrane, loaded with fat, of the same nature as that in the other parts of the body; on the contrary, in the whale it is altogether impossible to raise any layer of skin distinct from the rest of the blubber, however thick it may be; and in flensing a whale, the operator removes this blubber or skin from the muscular parts beneath, merely dividing with his spade the connecting cellular membrane. (Dublin Phil. Journ. vol. i. 356.)

Without prosecuting this point farther, we can only in a word say, that we doubt not that this is the more correct view, which, by the by, had previously been maintained both by Pallas and by Professor Giesecki; and it is interesting to see how, in the productions of nature, often apparently the smallest possible alteration effects the most wonderful change. This is very conspicuous here. A soft wrapper of fat, though double in thickness to that usually found in the Cetacea, could not have resisted the superincumbent pressure; whereas, by its being a modification of the skin, always firm and elastic, and, in this case, being never less than several inches, and sometimes between one and two feet thick, it operates like so much caoutchic, possessing a density and resistance which the more it is pressed it resists the more.

Other uses of this peculiarity of the skin will readily suggest themselves to the reader’s mind. The order is warm blooded, and yet is exposed to the keenest cold in the deepest recesses of the frozen seas. Hence this wrapper, or blanket, as it has been appropriately called, being a bad conductor of caloric, will at once resist the surrounding cold and retain the animal heat. On this account alone, such an integument seems essential; its bulk and quantity is enormous, sometimes weighing thirty tons, which might appear sufficient to overwhelm the animal, and yet from being specifically lighter than the waters of the ocean, instead of oppressing, it buoys it up, and makes it relatively lighter, and so more active.

The flesh or muscles of the Cetacea is not so much like that of fish as like that of beasts, more especially the stronger, such as the hull or horse; it is firm and, with some exceptions, coarse. The same remark may be made respecting their osseous structure; in colour and solidity the bones resemble those of quadrupeds, though somewhat less compact; and they have no medullary cavity. The mammæ in the herbivorous Cetacea are pectoral; in the ordinary, abdominal. Their milk is stated to be very rich, and according to Messrs. Jenner and Ludlow, is like cow’s milk to which cream has been added. (J. Hunter, in Phil. Trans. vol. lxxvii. 446.)

The internal structure is very much on the same model as that of the other mammalia, and this therefore is a sufficient reason for our not dilating upon it. Some differences, however, arise from the peculiarity of their circumstances, and on these we shall slightly touch.

No circumstance connected with the economy of whales is more extraordinary than the long period during which they can suspend the vital function of respiration. In most of the mammalia the inhalations succeed each other with great rapidity, and cannot be suspended for more than a few instants. In man, for example, even when at rest, they occur every three seconds; whilst this interval in the Cetacea is augmented many hundred and even thousand-fold; for it is a fact, that the larger genera will remain an hour, and sometimes nearer two, under water. There must then he some essential peculiarity in their organization, to account for this extraordinary phenomenon; and yet we know not that any regular attempt at explanation has hitherto been made. It is with considerable hesitation, therefore, that we offer the following brief hints upon the point.

Respiration is in a great degree subservient to the circulation of the blood: the stimulus to inspiration is the accumulation of this fluid in the lungs, which when purified proceeds to the heart, whence it is propelled through the frame for the purposes of secretion, &c.; after which it is again received into the veins, where it assumes its venous aspect, and is deprived of its arterial character. The circle thus described in man and the mammalia generally, is, so to speak, continuous and simple. In the Cetacea, however, it is not so; for in them the arterial portion, instead of being a simple and direct course to the venous, is complicated by the addition of a structure which we believe is peculiar to this order, and which is nothing less than a grand reservoir for the reception of a great quantity of arterial blood, which, as occasion requires, is emptied into the general circulation, and thus, for a time at least, supercedes the necessity of respiration.

This structure was first noticed by John Hunter, and with his usual minute accuracy; Dr. Barclay then described it as existing within the spinal canal of the white whale; more lately, Dr. Knox has observed it within the cranial cavity itself; whilst Messrs. Desmoulins and Breschet have noticed it in France. In a few words, we may describe it as a great irregular reservoir of arterial blood, contained within a plexus of arteries, deriving its blood from the vessels near the heart, which lines a large portion of the interior of the chest, insinuating itself between the ribs, forming a great cushion external to them near the spine, and also within the spinal canal and the cranium itself. Now it is this structure which we believe has been, and which we would venture again to adduce, as offering a satisfactory explanation of the extraordinary fact under review. None of the authors named above have associated this remarkable structure with the no less remarkable phenomenon;¹ nor have they assigned any other use to it. It would appear that these great vessels, or cylinders, as Mr. Hunter calls them, do not communicate directly with veins; nor are they formed of ramifications which communicate freely with each other, but each may be followed to a great extent, and unravelled, as if twisted upon itself; and, upon the whole, we are free to allow that the suggestion of its use above afforded, presents itself to our view, as alike plausible, simple, and satisfactory.

Mr. Hunter moreover remarked that the quantity of blood belonging to the whale tribe is proportionably very large, a circumstance which this reservoir at once explains; and M. Desmoulins states, that in the Cetacea the blood is at a higher temperature than in the terrestrial mammalia, rising as high as 104°. (Dict. Class, d’Hist. Nat.) Respecting the Lungs, J. Hunter has also observed that they are more than usually elastic; the pulmonary cells, too, are unusually small, and communicate with each other in a way that is not generally seen, for by blowing into one branch of the trachea, not only the lobe to which the air directly goes, but the whole lungs, are inflated. (Ib. 418.)

When we reflect, that in the Cetacea, respiration is carried on through the lungs, and that they inhabit the ocean, we shall at once perceive that a peculiar apparatus must be provided for the performance of this function. They have no nostrils, accurately so called, and their mouths are seldom opened in free air, and therefore the process is carried on by tubes which open on the summit of their head, and which are called the blow-holes or spiracles. In man and the other mammalia, the mouth and nostrils, as every one knows, terminate posteriorly in a common pouch or bag, called the pharynx, from which both the windpipe and gullet take their origin; the former, and anterior, through an aperture called the glottis, which is covered by the epiglottis as a valve, which usually stands erect, but upon the passing of a morsel, shuts down like a lid, and so leaves a free passage for the food. In the Cetacea the spiracles admit free ingress and egress of air into and from the lungs; but as the mouth is at the same time usually filled with water, some mechanism must be provided to prevent it from rushing into these organs. The peculiarity then commences at this point. The epiglottis, instead of being a simple and usually unshut lid, forms in some of the Cetacea the anterior rim of the rima or slit, and in others encloses these parts at their base, and assists them in forming a projecting tube or canal. In this particular there is great variety in the individual species; and, as a sample merely, we refer to sketches i and k, which exhibit the larynx in the common dolphin as sketched in the Encyclop. Methodique, and in the sea unicorn, as represented by Dr. Fleming; in both of which it will be seen that the rima glottidis is on the summit of a projecting cone or pyramid. This is received into the lower end of the blowing-tube, which is a circular aperture, surrounded with a strong sphincter muscle which includes the glottis in its grasp, thus uniting the windpipe and the blow-tube, which cross the fauces or swallow, and divide it into two passages. In some of the species there is an enlargement at the projecting end of the glottis, which would seem intended to prevent its retractation; but this peculiarity does not exist in others. The union of the glottis with the lower aperture of the tube makes a kind of joint to admit of motion, and of dilatation and contraction in the floating palate, in swallowing, owing to the glottis moving more into or out of the tube. Immediately above the lower aperture, the tube becomes considerably larger, and proceeds upwards and forwards, through the bones and soft parts, till it reaches the summit of the head. The tube is usually divided by a septum into two canals, which in the first subdivision of the ordinary Cetacea open by two blowholes, whilst in the second the septum ceases, and the tube terminates as it begins, by a single aperture. The whole of this singular mechanism is peculiar to the Cetacea. The other mammalia, when feeding, reside in a medium which, by means of their respiratory organs becomes the pabulum vitæ, whilst the Cete in procuring sustenance are habitually under water, which were it to find entrance into their lungs, would prove as noxious as in man; and yet by a slight alteration in a few cartilages at the top of the windpipe, and in the direction of the air tubes, their feeding in the deep ocean is made as safe for them as that of the others in the balmy breeze.

Regarding the voice of this order, it would appear that we have not yet arrived at any definite conclusion. Mr. Scorseby states of the Greenland whale that “whales have no voice;” and this is generally applied to all the other species. There is, however, a difficulty in adopting this conclusion, from the amount of testimony which affirms that they bellow loudly, under certain circumstances. In proof of this we do not go hack to such statements as Anderson’s concerning the rorqual, or to the Abbe Lecoz’s regarding the sperm whale, or to the older voyagers, who often state that they heard them utter terrible cries, but we shall come to more recent occurrences. In January 1812, some fishers of Paimpol observing a number of small whales of the porpoise genus at some distance from shore, supplied themselves with arms and gave chase, endeavouring to drive them towards the shore. They succeeded in frightening them, and hunted one of the smallest of them from the deep. When stranded in shallow water it began to utter cries, which speedily brought others, among the first of which its mother was supposed to be one. She, however, was accompanied with many; the cries were augmented according as the number of those in peril was increased, and finally they all, to the number of seventy, violently precipitated themselves among the shallows and were taken. Cuvier, who received the details of this occurrence and published them (Ann. du Museum, tom. xix. 1.), subjoins the following remark:

As to their power of uttering cries and bellowings, more or less acute, we cannot, after the assertions which have been made by those who heard them, any longer entertain a doubt.

Is it not from this power of uttering cries, that the Melas of Dr. Trail has received the popular name of ca’ing, that is calling whale? The statements of the fishermen regarding it entirely agree with what has just been stated respecting the Griseus, viz. that no sooner is one of their numerous flocks in danger of being stranded, than it utters vehement cries, which being heard by the rest, they come to its relief, and usually share its dangers. We shall add another and not less pertinent statement on the respectable authority of Orbigny, regarding some animals stranded on the coast of La Vendee in 1822.

In the month of June many of the inhabitants of Aiguillon were aroused at eleven p. m. by a dreadful noise which apparently proceeded from the sea-shore, and which they compared to the bellowing of a hundred hulls. Some of the most courageous among them went to discover what it was; but, terrified with the extraordinary noise, more appalling during the silence of night, and increased by heavy blows on the land and sea, they returned to their homes. When day appeared they saw four great animals (it was thought there had been others) struggling with death, and uttering frightful cries.

Is it, we would enquire, that this noise is wholly connected with the blowing apparatus, or may not these Cetacea, in the circumstances stated, have produced it through the windpipe and mouth, answering to the voice in other mammalia? But, however this may be, a still more important point is brought by the circumstance under consideration. If in any way they can produce a loud noise in air, what is to hinder them from doing the same under water? And if they have this faculty at all, then, according to well known accoustic principles, would not the sound be heard better, and conveyed farther than in air; and would not this satisfactorily explain the fact so often stated, that they have some mysterious mode of intercommunication under water, to the extent in the sperm whale, according to Beale of four, five, and even seven miles, of which no explanation, so far as we know, has hitherto been attempted? We venture to throw out this idea for the consideration of those who have better opportunities of judging than ourselves. It would probably require a more minute knowledge of the windpipe and neighbouring parts, ere we can minutely explain the mode in which these cries are uttered, and this voice, so to call it, exerted.

We need scarcely remark, that it is the apparatus above alluded to that has procured for the order the popular name of blowers, which is applicable to all the ordinary Cete. Their spoutings or jets d’eau, as they have been called, are heard as well as seen at a great distance, as much as two and three miles, and rise sometimes as high as twenty or thirty feet. It was for long supposed that this appearance was chiefly owing to the water which they take in with their food, and which, if swallowed, would only oppress them. But in opposition to this, it has more recently been maintained, that the proper egress of the water is the same as its ingress, and that by contracting the surrounding muscles, the throat and mouth can easily be cleared of the fluid. The spiracles, moreover, have a secretion peculiar to themselves; and it is now the fashionable opinion among naturalists, that it is especially this secretion, together with the superfluous vapour of the lungs, which, along with the expired breath, forms the proper substance of the projected column. This is the opinion maintained, among others, by Scorseby and Blainville, certainly weighty names. Notwithstanding this, we venture to express doubts whether the point is either definitely or satisfactorily established. It would appear there is an allowed difficulty, arising from the great quantity of the fluid frequently expelled; which is met by the statement, that sometimes the ejected air comes in contact with some supernatant water, and raises quantities along with it With a perfect cognizance of these opinions, however, we find that M. Lesson, from much personal observation, dissents from this opinion, and, as late as 1828, maintains the old and now often scouted explanation. He states that, from having often seen the phenomenon, and frequently within the distance of a few yards, he feels constrained to oppose the prevailing view. He observes of the sperm whale, that when only breathing, and not feeding, it has no jets at all; and that, when feeding and taking in water, it then expels some through its spiracles, though to no great height; whilst in other whales, the projected column long retains the appearance of a united stream, mounting high before it falls down again in a shower. (Cétaces, 308.) Amidst these conflicting statements we are the less surprised to find another opinion which embraces, if it does not quite reconcile, the other two. Thus Quoy and Gaimard, though they agree with Scorseby, that possibly no water may sometimes be expelled during expiration, yet having often observed that during stormy weather the jets took place both more frequently and more abundantly, account for the fact on the supposition, that as it is then that the Cetacea feed most freely, the projecting of the water takes place chiefly when they are engaged in this important process. These naturalists go further; they maintain,

the habits of the smaller Cete supply a convincing proof against the opinion of Mr. Scorseby; for beyond doubt, if the jet was composed only of air and condensed mucus, the porpoises on our coasts would emit this vapour in a similar way, according to their size; and yet this is not the case. Those who inhabit the sea-coasts and great rivers, when sufficiently near, hear these animals make a great noise,—to grunt like a porpoise, is a proverb among sailors, but they never see any apparent jet from the blow-hole. (Zoologie de l’Uranie, p. 80.)

Desmoulins expresses his opinion in these words,—

It is not water, but mucosity, which is expelled by the blow-holes during expiration; the animal spouts water only after deglutition, or in the moments of rage. (Dict. Classique.)

This two-fold view of the matter has been adopted by an eminent British naturalist, as late as the year 1831. He states, the apparatus is used for getting rid of the superfluous water from the mouth, and that this takes place as well under water as on the surface.

As often as the whale opens its enormous jaws, its mouth of course immediately fills with water; but it is only the fish, fuci, or small marine animals, “unsafe within the wave of such commotion,” that are actually swallowed. The water itself is partly regurgitated and partly made to pass upwards, and by a peculiar and very admirable mechanism is thrown out by the blow-holes. When the animal breathes on the surface, a moist vapour, mixed with mucus, is exhaled; but no water is thrown up, unless the expiration is made beneath the waves, or the creature itself is either in a sportive mood, or under the influence of rage or terror.(Illustrations of Zoology by James Wilson, vol. ii.)

Are we then to understand, that occasionally the mucosity only is discharged, and that sometimes again this is mixed with water? Among other arguments that are used against this latter alternative, Blainville states (Nouv. Dict. Hist. Natur. tom. xix.) that the construction of the parts does not admit of the ingress of water. This is a point to be ascertained. Is it true that such a peculiarity of construction exists in all the genera; and that they have no power to use it for both purposes as occasion may require? Our own observations, grounded upon the examination of several genera, would lead us to answer that they had this power. In the meanwhile we remark, that as the mechanism is different in almost every genus, so the blowing is different in most of them; and to such an extent, that we believe an experienced observer could, even at a distance, determine the variety at any particular time in sight; and the utility of this to the whalers need not be insisted upon. When describing the genera, we shall, as far as our materials enable us, point out these minute peculiarities.

One general remark, however, may here be premised, viz. that the blowing is most conspicuous in the largest genera, very marked also in those of intermediate dimensions, while in the smaller it is seldom or ever visible at all. Thus Lesson remarks,

we have examined for hours many different species of dolphins sporting around the vessel, without witnessing the slightest column of water, or of vapour, being projected from the blow-holes. (Zool. de la Loquille, p. 177.)

And so Quoy and Gaimard,

the dolphins very rarely spout; we were going to say never, because we have never seen it, but that Spallanzani states that he witnessed it whilst passing from Lipari to Stromboli, and Humboldt mentions he saw it in porpoises, in the fresh water, three hundred leagues from the mouth of the Orinocco. (Zoologie de l’Uranie, p. 79.)

And this would appear to arise not only from their inferior size and energy, but also from a difference in the construction of the apparatus, which we do not think has been pointed out. In the smaller varieties the parts seem to be much less muscular; and hence, though quite efficient for all the purposes of life, they rarely produce visible spoutings, but carry on respiration in a manner more nearly resembling animals, not inhabitants of the water.

After “their spoutings are out,” to avail ourselves of the expressive phraseology of the whalers, most of the Cete, as we have already stated, descend into the depths of the ocean, where they are sometimes exposed to the pressure of one hundred and fifty-four atmospheres, equal to about a ton upon each square inch. We have seen how this pressure is met, by a peculiarity of the integuments over the whole surface of the body; it now remains to state how the delicate apparatus we have just described is defended from danger from the same cause. The external opening of the blow-holes is in some of the larger species an opening or slit of a foot in length, the tube itself is of large dimensions, and the chest is a great chamber of air: by what means then is water prevented, under this immense pressure, from entering the lungs and so destroying the animals? We answer: It is mainly by a set of valves which act upon the same principle in all the genera, but which are varied in each, by a number of contrivances equally extraordinary, beautiful, and efficient. We shall illustrate this remark by epitomizing a short portion of Pallas’ excellent account of the apparatus in the Beluga or white whale. The blow-hole opens in the most elevated part of the head, and this opening is circumscribed by a double arch. The skin is drawn towards this orifice, and forms over it in front a soft papillary valve, which may be compared to an epiglottis, and which prevents the entrance of foreign bodies. The skin over the valve is scarcely two lines thick, but internally it envelopes a projecting body, which is about two inches thick, and which is composed of a network of tendinous fibres hard as wood, and which can scarcely be cut with a knife. A similar network of tendinous fibres, arranged in circles, forms, in this situation, the external wall of the blowing canal; and two strong muscles rising from the frontal bone, and peculiar to the canal, acting on these bodies, most effectually shuts them down, and thus secures the canal. It is an apparatus to which there is nothing similar in any of the other mammalia. We shall, on this interesting point, likewise avail ourselves of the interesting descriptions and sketches of Scorseby. In the true whale, he remarks, the first impression of each blow-hole on the upper part of the skull is marked by an oblong cavity (see l, sketch l. Plate i. representing the upper surface of the anterior part of the whale’s skull, the skin and fat being removed), which is the seat of a muscular substance attached by its anterior extremity to the surface of the skull, and also attached by its posterior and inferior extremity to the interior of the skull, at some depth in the blowing canal l, l, sketch m. The part of this muscle which penetrates the bony canal is of a conical form, the apex downwards, or within, represented at 2, in figure m, which is a vertical section of the skull; so that when this interior portion contracts, the muscular cone is drawn tight into the orifice, and completely closes the breathing canal l, l; while on the other hand, the action of the external part of the muscle draws the conical plug forward and upwards, and affords a free passage for the air in respiration. This beautiful structure it is which enables the animal, under the immense pressure to which it is sometimes exposed, to exclude the sea-water from its lungs: so far from the water being forced down the canals, the enormous load serves only more effectually to press down and close the valves that defend the passages to the lungs. (Journal of a Voyage, &c. 152 57.)

To this we may add, that in those genera in which the external aperture to the ear is not covered by the common integuments, there is a valve placed in the passage to guard against the pressure of water upon the drum of the ear, whereby it would be broken and the organ of healing destroyed. Mr. Scorseby’s words, in relation to the Mysticetus, are,—there is an elegant appearance found near the external opening, in the shape of a little plug, like the end of the finger, which is inserted in a corresponding cavity in the interior of the canal, by a slight motion of which the opening can either be effectually shut, for the exclusion of water, or unclosed for the admission of sound: and M. Orbigny remarks, upon four of the P. Griseus which he had an opportunity of examining,

the external orifice of the ear was shut by a very fine valve which appeared to have the power of opening and shutting at the animal’s will. (F. Cuvier’s Hist., &c. 185.)

The only other part of the animal to which we shall at present advert is the nervous system, which, from its vast importance on the habits and character of the living being, must ever be regarded with interest. It would appear that the observations made on this point are still by much too few to enable us to come to any thing like general results; and in systematic writers, we meet with the utmost contrariety of statement. Thus Cuvier, in his Lectures (Comp. Anat. ii. 265), judging from the limited opportunities which at that time had come within his reach, speaks of the brain of the Cetacea generally, as distinguished for its great breadth and height; whilst Lesson, on the other hand, states that it is always very small in relation to the size of the animals (Cétacés, 23). The truth appears to lie between these two opinions, and to have been expressed by Hunter when he says,

the size of the brain differs much in different genera of the tribe, and likewise in the proportion it bears to the bulk of the animal. (Loc. cit., p. 423.)

It will probably require a distinct examination of each species before certainty is attained. From the present state of our knowledge, it would appear that the larger varieties have very small brains in proportion to the size of their bodies, whilst the smaller kinds again have very large and well developed brains. In regard to the mysticetus, Mr. Scorseby states, from actual examination of at least one specimen, that the brain lies in a small cavity in the upper and back part of the skull; its general appearance is not unlike that of other mammalia, but its smallness is remarkable. In a young specimen, 19 feet long, which weighed 11,200 pounds, the brain weighed only 3 pounds 12 ounces, which is only one three thousandth part of the whole animal; whilst in man it is calculated to weigh one thirty-fifth part. In a young rostrata, which measured 17 feet, Mr. Hunter found that the brain weighed 4 pounds 8 ounces; and M. Delalande reports that in a rorqual, nearly 80 feet long, the brain filled only a cavity which measured 13 inches by 9. On the other hand, Cuvier states, from five examinations of the porpoise and dolphin, that on the average the brain weighed one sixty-third part of the whole. This statement, regarding these smaller groups, is corroborated by Tyson, who in his Anatomy of the Porpoise remarks that the brain is large, its figure somewhat short, but what it wants in length it has in breadth; Ray observes that the largeness of the brain, and its correspondence to man’s, argues this creature to be of more than ordinary wit and capacity; and Tiedemann, the highest living authority in this department, remarks,

that the brain of the dolphin is distinguished from that of monkies by its great size and developement; and, next to the brain of the orang-outang, approaches nearest, in this respect, to the human brain.

We here introduce a sketch of Tiedemann s plate of the base of the brain in the dolphin, in illustration of his remark; and add, that considering the marked effect which the relative size of this important organ generally has on the character of the animal, it seems desirable that every opportunity should be embraced to accumulate accurate information on the point.

There is nearly an equal paucity of facts concerning the senses of this order. First, in relation to that of smell. Among the early fishermen and systematic writers this faculty was conceded, in the highest possible perfection, to the whole tribe. Thus Anderson, in his excellent account of Iceland and Greenland, narrates that the inhabitants of the Ferroe isles, when they perceived that their boats were pursued by the sperm whale, which, according to him, is a very dangerous species, used to throw some castor overboard, which made him sink to the bottom like a stone. Ginger was celebrated for similar virtues, and the blood of animals still more so. Chalk and sulphur had still greater powers, for no fish would come near a vessel freighted with these articles; and such opinions are very prevalent with sailors up to the present time. The comparative anatomists seem to have been the first to throw out difficulties in the way of this belief, by discovering that in the majority of the species the olfactory nerve does not exist, and that there is no opening in the skull by which that nerve can pass. Cuvier’s words, in 1823, are,—in the Cetacea there is an absence of the olfactory nerve and the usual organs of smell. (Os. Foss. v. 235; see too, Comp. Anat. vol. ii. 683). Ray and Rondelitius were aware of this fact as it respects the dolphin, yet the latter of these authors still maintains that it has a very acute sense of smell, “as Aristotle testifies and experience manifests;” conclusion in which few, now-a-days, will be inclined to follow him. The same deficiency has been ascertained respecting the porpoise genus; and Cuvier’s words are,—

probably the other Cetacea likewise want them, as they have no æthmoidal holes. (Comp. Anat. ii. 199 196.)

This, however, only shows the danger of reasoning from analogy in this order of animals, whose differences appear to be endless. Mr. Hunter says,

I believe the olfactory nerve is peculiar to the mysticetus and rorqual,—the large and small whalebone whales (Loc. Cit. 429);

and such an observation was more than sufficient to set the ingenuity of this extraordinary man to work. How do animals smell? have aromata any other vehicle than air? how can water be smelt? and according to him, water, in the Cetacea, never comes into contact with the sinuses in which their olfactory nerves are distributed; and their perceiving smells, through the medium of air, could be of no service when feeding in the depths of the ocean. These are some of the interesting questions that occurred to the mind of J. Hunter, and on which he dwells; though we cannot say that even his ingenuity has settled them. Lesson states that the olfactory nerve is wholly absent in the sperm whale (17); and Mr. Knox, in his account of the great rorqual, states, that this nerve is large. The prevailing opinion, therefore, now is, that the sense of smell is possessed by the true whales and the rorquals, and is wanting in all the rest. (See Dict. Class. d’Hist. Nat. Art. Baleine.) We much doubt, however, if this should be regarded in any other light than an approximation to the truth.

The organ of vision in the Cetacea appears usually to be very small, in relation to the size of the animal; Cuvier has made this remark with regard to all large animals, and especially the Cetacea. Notwithstanding the enormous bulk of the larger whales, their eye is stated not to exceed in size that of an ox. (See Arct. Reg. i. 456). In the beluga examined by Dr. Barclay, which measured between thirteen and fourteen feet, the eye is stated to be not so large as in man (Wern. Trans. iii. 393); and as it regards the porpoise, Tyson states, that it is not so large as the sheep’s (199 38). In some species again, it appears to be proportionably larger. Thus Quoy and Gaimard state, that in the rorqual which they examined in the Falkland islands, about fifty-five feet long, the eye was five inches in the long diameter and four in the short. In Dr. Knox’s great rorqual the organ is placed very far back in the head, obliquely above and behind the angle of the mouth, and near to that part of the animal which corresponds with its greatest breadth, so that by the simple motion of the eye it commands a wide range of vision. Cuvier has remarked that its axis of vision is directed obliquely downwards, so that it may at all times the more readily perceive its food as it floats below it; and, according to Scorseby, the sense of seeing is acute, since whales are observed to discover one another in clear water, when under the surface, at an amazing distance. He at the same time states, that when on the surface, the mysticetus does not see far. On the other hand, it has been remarked, that the sperm whale, when above the surface, appears to view objects very readily which are placed in a direct line with the eye; its common mode of looking at a boat or ship being to turn over on its side, so as to cause the rays from the object to strike directly upon the retina. When alarmed, and anxious to take as rapid a glance as possible on all sides, it assumes a perpendicular position in the water, with its head protruding above the surface and the eye directed to the object (Beale’s Obs. on the Sperm Whale). This practice, as will subsequently appear, is not confined to the sperm whale.

The organ of hearing in the Cete is in many respects peculiar. It resembles considerably the mechanism in fishes, though in various particulars it approaches more or less to that of land animals. Being aquatic in their habit, the organ must especially have a reference to the laws of sound as connected with their native element; and yet several of the species seem so formed as to receive impressions conveyed through air. None of them have the external auricular appendages which are common in the other mammalia; neither have they any osseous meatus opening; their external meatus is nothing more then a very slender cartilaginous canal, which commences sometimes at, and much more frequently beneath, the surface of the skin, and takes a serpentine direction as it passes through the subjacent parts to reach the drum of the ear. In the sperm whale the external opening would admit a small writing quill. After the examination of the young mysticetus, Mr. Scorseby remarks, the opening of the passage is so small as not to be easily discovered; in the sucking whale it was only one-sixth of an inch in diameter (Journal, &c. 154); and yet at a previous period he had stated that no orifice for the admission of sound can be discovered in the Greenland whale until the skin is removed (Arct. Reg. i. 456). There is here a discrepancy in the statements of tins generally accurate and accomplished author; and on the authority of the latter passage, it is usually stated that the mysticetus has no external aperture. In the beluga which was examined by Dr. Barclay, no external opening could be discovered, nor was any found in the toothless whale of Havre, fifteen feet long, examined by Blainville; nor in any of the seventy globiceps, which were stranded in Brittany in 1812; nor in a rorqual, fifty-eight feet long, examined near Rochefort by M. Souty; and the same is true of a narwhal and dolphin, we have had an opportunity of examining. The internal ear is quite as peculiar, in that it is scooped out of a particular bone forming no portion of the usual cranial bones, and is attached to them only by ligaments. In several of the order, the eustachian tube opens high up in the blowing canal, answering, as we have seen, to the nose; and through this it evidently must be that the animal hears any sound that is communicated through the air: it is with this tube also that these cavities communicate, in which it is alleged that the nerves of smelling are situated; so that it is with some show of truth that it has been stated of the genera so organized, that they hear by the nose and smell by the ear. Tiedemann remarks, regarding the dolphin,

perhaps the most remarkable nerve for its great relative size is the acoustic, which testifies to the delicate sense of hearing in it.

The two remaining senses, taste and touch, seem to be possessed by the Cetacea in a very inferior degree, and concerning these we shall not now stop to make any observations.

The mental faculties of the Cete, so far as observations have been made on this very obscure point, appear to vary greatly in the different genera; for winch reason we shall reserve all remarks on this subject till we come to treat of the different genera in detail. We shall do the same with regard to the dispositions manifested by the various species, which must be learnt in connexion with their individual history. We may here, however, notice one point in which they seem all to agree, viz. the reciprocal regard they manifest for each other. This is common more or less to them all, whether as it regards the mother and her young, or the cub and its parents, or the several members of the same family or shoal. This amiable trait in the character of the whole order, is quaintly but beautifully illustrated in the following lines of the old poet, Waller, which bear intrinsic marks of being a delineation from nature. In his Battle of the Summer Islands, we are informed that two whales, an old and young one, were embayed in the shallows; and the following scenes were enacted.

The bigger whale like some high earack lay,
Which wanteth sea-room with her foes to play:
This sees the cub, and does himself oppose
Betwixt his cumber’d mother and her foes:
With desperate courage he receives her wounds,
And men and boats his active tail confounds;
Their forces joined, the seas with billows fill,
And make a tempest, though the winds be still.

Now would the men with half their hoped-for prey
Be well content; and wish this cub away:
Their wish they have; he (to direct his dam
Unto the gap through which they thither came)
Before her swims, and quits the hostile lake,
A prisoner there, but for his mother’s sake:
She, by the rocks compell’d to stay behind
Is by the vastness of her bulk confined,—
They shout for joy! And now on her alone
Their fury falls, and all their darts are thrown;
Their fixed jav’lins in her sides she wears,
And on her back a grove of pikes appears.
Roaring, she tears the air with such a noise
As well resembled the conspiring voice
Of routed armies when the field is won,
To reach the ears of her escaping son.
He, though a league removed from the foe,
Hastes to her aid:—

The men amaz’d, blush’d to observe the seed
Of monsters human piety exceed!
Their courage droops, and hopeless now they wish
For composition with th’ unconquer’d fish;
Not daring to approach their wounded foe,
Whom her courageous son protected so.—
The rising tide, ere long, their efforts aid,
And to the deep a passage for them made;
And thus they parted with exchange of harms,
Much blood the monsters lost, and they—their arms.

---

We now proceed to the survey of the several genera in their order; and in doing so, we beg to remind our readers that the whole order is divided into two great tribes, the Ordinary and Herbivorous Cetacea. Tire former is distinguished chiefly by being more pisciform in its appearance, and entirely so in its habits; ranging throughout the depths of the ocean, and feeding upon the usual prey of fishes; whilst the latter, though wholly aquatic, approximates to the amphibiæ, and resides at the estuaries of rivers, there feeding on the vegetables which grow on the shores and shallows. The former, too, is by much the most numerous and varied, being in fact one of the largest tribes which exists in nature.

First Genus—Balæna

Some further division, therefore, becomes indispensable. The first and most important group has, by Cuvier and others, been distinguished by a very striking peculiarity, viz. the enormous size of the head, which, according to common apprehension, appears disproportionate, extending to a fourth, and even a third, of the dimensions of the whole frame. Under this first subdivision we class the Common or Greenland Whale, the Rorquals, and the Spermaceti Whales. The two former of these have no teeth whatever, but whalebone or baleen only; and the Sperm Whale has no baleen, and has teeth in the lower jaw only.

Food of the Whale

The food of these animals, so vast and strong, is too remarkable not to claim a moment’s attention. They have no teeth, and hence we at once perceive they cannot prey on the smaller of their own kind, or on the larger fishes; and their throat is so small, that they could not dispose of a morsel which is swallowed by an ox. The well provided pasture grounds, however, as they may be called, exhibit, to the contemplation of the curious, one of the most wonderful manifestations of Beneficence and Power. A very considerable portion of those spaces in which this whale is found is occupied by what is called green-water. Something analogous, though of a yellowish or reddish tint, occurs in southern latitudes, as will he afterwards noticed. Captain Scorseby, in 1816, first investigated the peculiarities of the green-water. This accomplished naturalist states, that it forms perhaps one-fourth part of the Greenland sea, between the parallels of 74° and 80°, equal to about twenty thousand square miles. Though it is liable to alteration of position from the action of currents, still it is always found, year after year, near certain situations. It often constitutes long bands or streams, of varying length and breadth, extending 2° or 3° of latitude in length, and from a few miles to thirty or forty in breadth. It is usually an olive-green, and of striking opacity; sometimes it is nearly grass-green, or with a shade of black.

Mr. Scorseby examined the qualities of this water, and, to his astonishment, found that it obtained its colour from the presence of immense numbers of animalcules, most of them invisible without the aid of the microscope. The greatest number consisted of an animal of the medusa kind, belonging to an order with which most of our readers will be familiar, under the vulgar name of sea-blubber, a soft gelatinous substance, often found lying on the sea shore, and exhibiting no signs of life, except shrinking when touched. He found the prevailing specimens to be globular, transparent, and from one-twentieth to one-thirtieth of an inch in diameter. (See Plate iii.) Figure 1 is a specimen of this, of course greatly magnified; figure 2 represents another of these minute animals, resembling small portions of fine hair, somewhat dark in colour, and verging in length from a point to one-tenth of an inch. There appeared to be about thirty bead-like articulations in the largest, being thus beautifully monoliform; their diameter appeared to be about one three-hundredth part of an inch. Figs. 3, 4, 5, exhibit other minute animals which were wholly invisible to the naked eye. The number of medusa was found to be immense. Mr. S. estimates that two square miles contained 23,888,000,000,000,000; and as this number is above the range of human thought, he illustrates it by observing, that 80,000 persons must have started at the creation of the world to complete the enumeration at the present time. These animalculæ are not to be considered as the immediate food of the whale; they form, however, the food of the various shrimps and minute crabs, lobsters, and sea-snails (figs. 6, 7, 8, 9), and medusa, &c. (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19,) upon which the monster of the deep is supported. In this plate is seen at one glance the common food of this enormous whale; and its dependence on these minute insects, as well as that of the greater number of animals which inhabit those prodigious and dreary seas, is almost too clear to require demonstration. As before stated, the invisible animalculæ supply nourishment to the innumerable small shrimps, crabs, &c.; they in their turn are the food of the smaller fishes, which again supply nourishment to the larger, which are devoured by seals, dolphins, and other Cetacea; the hear again feeds upon the seal, and thus there is a wonderful dependent chain of existence formed, every link of which seems essential to the integrity of the whole.

When this whale feeds, it swims with considerable velocity below the surface, with its jaws widely extended. A stream of water consequently enters its mouth, and along with it large quantities of water-insects; the water escapes again at the sides; but the food is entangled and sifted in the baleen, which, from its compact arrangement, and the thick internal covering of hair, does not allow a particle the size of the smallest grain to escape.

It is presumed the period of gestation is nine or ten months, and the whale has but one at a birth, instances of two accompanying the female being very rare. The young one, at the time of birth, is ten or fourteen feet long. According to Sir Charles Giesecki, it turns on the one side on the surface of the water when it gives suck to its young, and then the cub attaches itself to the teat. It goes under the protection of its mother, probably for somewhat more than a year, till by the growth of the baleen it is enabled to procure its own food. It appears to attain its full growth at the age of twenty or twenty-five. The marks of age are an increase of the quantity of grey colour on the skin, and a change to a yellowish tint of the white parts; a decrease in the quantity of oil, and an increase in the hardness of the blubber. It is supposed to attain a great age.

The natural affection of this species is interesting. The cub being insensible to danger is easily harpooned, when the attachment of the mother is so manifested, as to bring it almost certainly within the reach of the whalers. Hence, though the cub is of little value, yet it is often struck as a snare for the mother. In this case she joins it at the surface whenever it has occasion to rise for respiration, encourages it to swim off, and seldom deserts it while life remains. She is then dangerous to approach, but affords frequent opportunities of attack. She loses all regard for her own safety in anxiety for the preservation of her young, dashes through the midst of her enemies, despises the danger that threatens her, and even voluntarily remains with her offspring after various attacks on herself. In 1811, says Mr. Scorseby, one of my harpooners struck a sucker, with the hope of leading to the capture of the mother. Presently she arose close by the “fast boat,” and seizing the young one, dragged about six-hundred feet of line out of the boat with remarkable force and velocity. Again she rose to the surface, darted furiously to and fro, frequently stopt short or suddenly changed her direction, and gave every possible intimation of extreme agony. For a length of time she continued thus to act, though closely pursued by the boats; and inspired with courage and resolution by her concern for her young, seemed regardless of the danger which surrounded her. At length one of the boats approached so near that a harpoon was hove at her; it hit, but did not attach itself. A second harpoon was struck, but this also failed to penetrate; but a third was more effectual and held. Still she did not attempt to escape, but allowed other boats to approach; so that in a few minutes three more harpoons were fastened, and in the course of an hour afterwards she was killed. There is something, continues this interesting writer, extremely painful in the destruction of a whale, when thus evincing a degree of affectionate regard for its offspring, which would do honour to the superior intelligence of human beings; yet the object of the adventure, the value of the prize, the joy of the capture, cannot he sacrificed to feelings of compassion.

The mysticetus, though often found in great numbers together, can scarcely be said to be gregarious; for they are found most generally solitary, or in pairs, excepting when they are drawn to the same spot by the attraction of an abundance of palatable food, or of a choice situation among the icebergs.

The habitat of this valuable species (as we shall presently see of others) is a point of the highest economic importance, and more especially now, when it has been chased from its older haunts into nearly the impenetrable and certainly the most hazardous recesses of the Polar Seas. In the Athenæum of the current year, January 1836, it is stated,

that the whole of the whales which frequent the Polar Seas pass annually to the southward, and may be equally well encountered in the Atlantic Ocean, in well known positions and seasons; that they pass in bodies in the months of March and April, about midway between the coasts of Iceland and Newfoundland; and that a much nearer and less dangerous fishery might be established at that season than by the present voyage to the Arctic Seas.

The great importance of the point at issue has induced us to give this statement from our much respected cotemporary; though we fear it is inaccurate, and might be adduced as an illustration of the prevailing ignorance concerning the whale tribes. If “the whole of the whales” go southward in March and April, how does it happen that, for hundreds of years, so many have been captured in the Polar Seas during the summer and autumnal months? Another scarcely less serious objection is the decided statement of Mr. Scorseby, the very highest authority on this subject, and which we believe has never been contradicted, that the true inysticetus has never been seen beyond the limits of the Arctic Regions. Besides, the green-water or feeding grounds of the whale, as well as the mollusca and other small animals on which they feed, are rare, or not at all seen, in lower latitudes. Mariners, it is true, often make such statements as the above; they have in this way reported, that great shoals of the largest whales frequent the northern shores of Lapland; and this is so far true; but, on examination, it is found not to be the mysticetus, but the rorqual, which comes next under our review, and we are disposed to think, that “the bodies of whales” will be found to belong to this species, which, we shall presently see, is usually avoided as unworthy of capture.

A description of the more valuable products of the whale will follow in the succeeding sketch of the fishery; but we shall now say a few words of those portions of it which are used in the domestic economy of uncivilized nations.

Although, to the palate of the refined European, the flesh of this whale would be viewed with abhorrence as an article of food; yet by some of the inhabitants of the borders of the frozen seas, it is regarded as a choice article of subsistence. The Esquimaux eat the flesh and fat, and drink the oil with great greediness. Indeed, some tribes which are not familiar with spiritous liquor, carry along with, them in their canoes, bladders filled with oil, which they use in the same way and with a similar relish as a toper does his dram. They also eat the skin of the whale raw, both adults and children; even the infants suck it with apparent delight. Blubber, when pickled and boiled, is said to be very palatable; the tail, when parboiled and then fried, is said to be not unsavoury, but even agreeable eating; and the flesh of young whales is by no means indifferent food.

Besides forming a choice eatable, the inferior products of the whale are applied to other purposes by the inhabitants of the Arctic Regions. Some membranes of the abdomen are used for the upper articles of clothing, and the peritoneum, in particular, Being thin and transparent, is used instead of glass in the windows of their huts; the bones are converted into harpoons and spears, for striking the seal or darting at sea-birds, and are also employed in the erection of their tents, and, with some tribes, in the formation of their boats; the sinews are divided into filaments, and used as thread with which they sew, with great nicety, the different articles of their dress.

Northern Whale Fishery

We should feel the more regret, that our limited space will not permit us to present a detailed account of the commerce and adventures of the northern fishery, or that of mysticetus, if we could not refer our readers, with the utmost confidence on these heads, to the very elaborate work of Mr. Scorseby, and also to a short but masterly account, brought down to the present day, in the last edition of the first volume of the much esteemed work of our contemporary, the Edinburgh Cabinet Library. Both of these, and especially the former, are mines of the most interesting and important information; and we lament we cannot more freely bring their contents under the notice of our readers. We find we must entirely omit even the short abridgement we had prepared, concerning the early and past history of the trade, as prosecuted by the Basques, the British, Dutch, and other nations, first on the coast of France and northern Europe; then with amazing energy and success at Spitzhergen; then in the Greenland seas; and finally, in Davies’ Straits and the northern shores of America. All we can now attempt is a few very brief statements regarding the present condition of the trade.

The following summary is given by Mr. Scorseby as the average quantity of shipping fitted out in different ports for nine years, ending 1818; and the comparison of it with the number sent out in 1830, taken from the Edinburgh Cabinet Library, will show the state of the trade at that date. The table likewise shows the share of the trade which is taken by England and Scotland; that it has very much been diminishing in the former country and somewhat increasing in the latter.

The decrease so marked in the above table, in comparing the year 1830 with the former average, has been steadily going on up to the present time. In 1831 there were eighty-eight ships engaged; in 1832, eighty-one; in 1833, seventy-seven; and in 1834, seventy-six.

For many years the fishery in Davis Straits was considered less hazardous than that of Greenland, in as much as the sea was clearer of ice, and the climate, on account of the lower latitude, somewhat more mild. The alterations, however, which have occurred in this fishery are precisely similar to those which occurred at Spitsbergen. The fish have gradually retired more and more to the northward, and deserted those localities in which they used to be captured in abundance. Twenty years ago, they were caught in great numbers in the opening of Hudson’s Straits, and at the borders of the western ice, near the coast of Labrador. In 1817, some of the Davis Straits whalers proceeded through the straits into Baffin’s Bay, to a much greater length than they were in the habit of adventuring, where, in the months of July and August, they found the sea clear of ice, and, in some parts, abounding with whales. In this state of the trade, the vessels destined for this quarter usually sailed in March or April. They proceeded first to the northern parts of Labrador, or to the mouth of Cumberland Straits, carrying on what was called the south-west fishery. After remaining there till about the beginning of May, they crossed to the east shore of the straits, and fished northwards along the coast. About the month of July they usually crossed Baffin’s Bay to Lancaster Sound, which they sometimes entered, and occasionally even ascended Barrow’s Strait. In returning, they fished down the western coast. If the ships were not previously filled, they remained there till the end of September, and, in some instances, persevered till late in October.

But this south-west fishery, and that on the eastern shore, to a high latitude, have shared the fate of the others we have alluded to; and, in the language of the whalers, have been “fished out.” Captains Ross and Parry, on returning from their Celebrated voyages, reported that, on the northwestern shores of Baffin’s Bay, whales had been seen in vast numbers, and this information immediately kindled the spirit of enterpise, and, for a time, signal success was the result. Since that period, the original grounds in Labrador and Davis Straits have been regarded only as secondary objects; and every nerve has been strained to reach those interior shores in high latitudes, where whales are still found in abundance. If, however, the prize is here found, so also is a corresponding risk; and dangers far exceeding those previously met with, have been encountered, and disasters which had never been previously equalled, even in this hazardous trade. The British capital embarked in this branch of commerce is calculated to be at the present time upwards of £.1,000,000 Sterling. The average return for the five years, ending with 1818, was £.567,000 per annum; that of 1814, a year peculiarly favourable, was above £.700,000; that of 1829 was upwards of £.376,000; and that of 1830, including the South Sea Fishing, was £.428,591. When a ship returns clean, the loss is estimated about £.2000; and the total expenses of a voyage, which yields two hundred tons of oil, is about £.3500.

The average price of oil for the last twenty years has been about £.30 per ton; and of whalebone £.163. The greatest cargo ever known by Mr. Scorseby, to have been brought from the northern seas, was that by Captain Souter of the Resolution of Peterhead, in 1814. It consisted of forty-four whales, yielding two hundred and ninety-nine tons of oil, which sold at £.9568; and adding the bounty and whalebone, the entire returns amounted £.11,000. In 1817. both Mr Scorseby and his father, who spent a long and honourable life in the trade, secured cargoes which, though less in quantity, yet, from the price being higher, yielded a larger return. This latter gentleman, in the course of twenty-eight voyages, killed four hundred and ninety-eight whales, whence were extracted four thousand two hundred and forty-six tons of oil, the value of which, with the bone, exceeded £.150,000!

So keenly has the fishery been prosecuted, and so great has been the number of whales taken, that it has been feared that, unless some restriction be imposed, the race will be extinguished, and the trade destroyed. Mr. Scorseby states, that, during the four years ending with the summer 1817, the number of whales killed by the British Greenland ships was three thousand five hundred and eight; and by those of the Davis Straits fishery, one thousand five hundred and twenty-two, in all five thousand and thirty. Upon the whole, it seems evident, that all those localities which were once crowded with the mysticetus, after the whalers have visited them for some time, become nearly deserted, and thus our fishers are time after time compelled to seek for new grounds for their exertions. And if the trade continue to be prosecuted with the same eagerness, there seems reason to fear that the mighty giant of the deep will finally share the fate of the most gigantic species of land animals, which would appear to have become extinct within the records of history, and that chiefly through the increasing slaughter and pursuit of man.

Proceedings in Capturing the Whale

But it is now time to give a short sketch of the method practised in capturing the whale. The first object is to fit out a ship adapted for the trade; and constructed, therefore, in such a manner as to possess a peculiar degree of strength. Its exposed parts, accordingly, are secured with double or treble timbers; whilst it is fortified internally with ice beams and cross bars, and externally with iron plates, &c. so disposed as to make the pressure on any one part to be supported by the whole fabric. A ship of about three hundred and fifty tons is deemed the most eligible, with a crew of about fifty men; six or seven very light and swift boats are required for the immediate pursuit; and one of the essential requisites is the crows nest, or hurricane-house, invented by the elder Scorseby, a species of watch-tower, made of hoops and canvass, placed on the main-top mast for the use of the master or officer on watch, to shelter him from the blast, where he may be called to sit for hours at the temperature of zero, and whence he can discover all the movements of the surrounding ice or fish, and give directions accordingly.

The whaling vessels, in going north, usually touch at the Shetland Islands, to complete their water, provisions, &c. and leaving the land generally about the beginning of April, they arrive within the Polar Seas before the end of that month. As soon as they reach the haunts of the whale, the crew must be every moment on the alert, keeping watch day and night. The boats, hanging over the ship’s side, are ready to be launched in an instant; and when the state of the sea admits, one of them is usually manned and afloat. The officer in the crow’s nest surveys the waters to a great distance, and the instant he perceives a whale he gives notice to the watch on deck, some of whom start instantly with the first boat, which is immediately followed by a second. Each of the boats has a harpooner and other subordinate officers; and is provided with an immense quantity of rope, carefully coiled and stowed in different parts of the boat, the different parts being spliced together, so as to form a continued line usually exceeding 4000 feet in length. To the end is attached the harpoon.

The boat is now rowed towards the whale with the greatest possible speed, in the deepest silence, cautiously avoiding giving alarm: sometimes a circuitous route is adopted in order to approach it from behind. Having reached within a few yards, the harpooner darts his instrument into the giant, who in the surprise and agony of the moment makes a convulsive effort to escape. This is the moment of danger, for the boat is exposed to the most violent blows of the whale’s head or fins, and still more of its tail, which sometimes sweeps the air with such tremendous fury, that both boat and men are exposed to a common destruction.

The moment that the wounded whale disappears, a jack or flag is displayed in the boat; on the sight of which, those on watch in the ship give the alarm by stamping on the deck, accompanied by the continued shout of “a fall, a fall.” At this signal the sleeping crew are aroused, jump from their beds, rush upon deck, with their clothes tied in a string in their hands, and crowd into the boats. With a temperature at zero, should a fall occur, the crew would appear on deck, covered only with their under garments, in the anticipation of dressing themselves, in part at least, as the boats are lowered down, though sometimes they are disappointed, and cannot get the process accomplished for a length of time afterwards.

The first and usual effort of the fast-fish is to escape from the boat by sinking under water, plunging with rapid flight under some neighbouring mountain of ice, or into the deep abyss. When fleeing from his pursuers, and then darting at the rate of eight or ten miles an hour, the greatest care must be used, that the line to which the harpoon is attached may run off readily along with him. Should it be entangled for a moment, the whale would draw the boat beneath the waves. Sometimes, however, to retard its motion, it is usual for the harpooner to cast one or more turns of the line round a kind of post, called the bollard, which is fixed near the stem of the boat for the purpose; and such is the friction of the line, when running round the bollard, that it frequently envelopes the harpooner in smoke; and if the wood were not repeatedly wetted, it would set fire to the boat. Notwithstanding this manœuvre, the line is often run out in eight or ten minutes; its end is then attached to the lines of the next boat, and even those of a third are sometimes put into requisition. When the crew of a boat see there is a prospect of their own store being exhausted, they hold up one, two, three, or more oars, according to the urgency of the required aid; for if none arrives, there is only one resource left, which is to cut the line, and thus lose it, fish and all.

The period during which a wounded whale remains under water is various, but, at an average, may be stated at half an hour. It is sometimes an hour, and more rarely longer still; and it has been asserted, on good authority, that a case has occurred of a wounded whale being dragged up alive after having been an hour and a half continually under water; a singular fact, certainly, in the history of warm-blooded animals. When it remains long under water, it becomes asphyxiated or nearly drowned, and in all instances is greatly exhausted for want of fresh air, and by means of the enormous pressure, equal according to Mr. Scorseby to upwards of 200,000 tons, which exceeds the weight of sixty of the largest ships of the British Navy, when manned, provisioned, and fitted for a six months cruise.

When the fast fish is under water, the assisting boats take up those positions near to which they calculate he is most likely to rise, in order that one of them at least may be within a start, as it is called; that is, within two hundred yards of his place of re-appearing, at which distance they can easily reach him before he is prepared to descend again. On its rising, they hasten towards the spot, and as they reach it, each harpooner plunges his weapon into its hack, to the amount of three, four, or more, according to the size of the whale, and the nature of the situation. Most frequently, however, the animal descends a few minutes after receiving the second harpoon, and obliges the other boats to await its return to the surface, before any further attack can be made. After this it is actively plied with long and sharp lances, which are thrust into its body, and aimed deep at its vitals. At length, when exhausted with numerous wounds and the loss of blood, which flows in copious streams, it indicates the approach of dissolution by discharging blood from the spiracles, along with the air and mucus, and finally, jets of blood alone appear. The sea to a great extent is dyed with the blood,—and the ice, boats, and men, are sometimes drenched with it Its track is likewise marked by a broad pellicle of oil, which exudes from its wounds, and appears on the surface of the sea. The final capture is sometimes preceded by a convulsive and awful struggle: and in dying, it turns over on its side or back; which joyful circumstance is announced by three loud huzzas, and the striking of the flags. No time is lost, ere the tail is pierced and fastened with ropes to the boats, which drag the carcase to the ship amidst shouts of triumph.

What is the time requisite for capturing a whale? In answer to this question, Mr. Scorseby states, that he has seen a whale despatched in fifteen minutes, and others alive, after severe treatment, at the end of fifty hours. Much depends on the conduct of the animal itself,—much on the activity of the whaler,—and much, also, on the nature of the situation and weather. He states, that the average time does not exceed an hour.

As bearing on this point, and exhibiting the surprising vigour of the mysticetus, we shall here introduce an anecdote related by Mr Scorseby. In 1817 the Royal Bounty of Leith fell in with whales at a distance from land and ice, there being at the same time a brisk breeze and clear weather. The boats were manned and sent in pursuit. After a chase of five hours, one of the boats struck the whale about four a. m. The captain followed in the ship, and though for a time he lost sight of them, yet he again descried a boat at eight a. m., with a signal displayed of being fast. Some time after, he observed another boat approach the fish, a second harpoon struck, and a new signal displayed. As, however, the fish drew the two boats away with considerable speed, it was mid-day before any assistance could reach them. Two more harpoons were then struck; but such was the vigour of the whale, that, though it constantly dragged through the water from four to six boats, together with a length of nearly a thousand feet of line to each, yet it pursued its course nearly as fast as a boat could row; and such was the terror it manifested on the approach of its enemies, that whenever a boat passed beyond its tail, it invariably dived. All endeavours, therefore, to lance it were in vain. The crews of the loose boats, being unable to keep pace with the fish, moored themselves to the fast boats, and for some hours afterwards all hands were constrained to sit idle, waiting for some relaxation in the speed of the whale. Its general course had been to windward, but its changing enabled the ship, which had previously been at a great distance, to join the boats at eight, p. m. The vessel took one of the fast lines on board, with the view of retarding its progress. The sails were lowered and furled, but after supporting the ship for a few minutes, head to wind, the harpoon lost its hold. The whale immediately set off to windward with increased speed, and, for three hours, the ship could not again approach it. Another line was then taken on board, but immediately broke. A fifth harpoon had previously been struck, but its line was speedily cut. Various schemes for arresting the speed of the fish were then resorted to, which occupied close attention for nearly twelve hours; but its velocity was still such, that the master, who had himself proceeded to the attack, was unable to approach sufficiently near to strike a harpoon. After a long chase, however, he succeeded in getting hold of one of the fast lines, and attached another line to it. The fish then fortunately turned towards the ship. At four p. m., thirty-six hours after it was struck, the ship again joined the boats, when, by a successful manœuvre, they secured two of the fast lines on hoard. The wind was blowing a moderately brisk breeze, and the sails were lowered; but notwithstanding the resistance a ship thus situated must necessarily have offered, she was towed by the fish directly to windward, with a velocity of two knots, during an hour and a half; and then, though the whale must have been greatly exhausted, it beat the waters with its fins and tail in so tremendous a way, that the sea around was in a continual foam, and the most hardy of the sailors scarcely dared to approach it. At length, about eight p. m., after forty hours of almost incessant exertion, this formidable enemy was slain.

After a whale has been caught and secured at the sides of the ship, the next operation is that of flensing or securing the blubber and whalebone. This disagreeble process can, with the whole strength of the crew, be effected in about four hours. Each seaman receives a dram, and some of the more important personages receive two. The huge carcass is somewhat extended by strong tackles placed at the snout and tail: a band of blubber two or three feet in width, encircling the fish’s body at what is the neck in other animals, is called the kent, because by means of it the fish is turned over or kented. To this band is fixed the lower extremity of a combination of powerful blocks, called the kent-purchase, by means of which, the whole circumference of the animal is, section by section, brought to the surface. The harpooners then, having spikes on their feet to prevent their falling from the carcass, begin with a kind of spade, and with huge knives, to make long parallel cuts from end to end, which are divided by cross-cuts into pieces of about half a ton.

These are conveyed on deck, and, being reduced into smaller portions, are stowed in the hold. Finally, being by other operations still further divided, it is put into casks, which is called making-off, and packed down completely by a suitable instrument.

When this flensing is proceeding, and when it reaches the lips, which contain much oil, the baleen is exposed. This is detached by means of bone handspikes, bone knives, and bone spades. The whole whalebone is hoisted on deck in one mass, where it is split by bone-wedges into junks, containing five or ten blades each, and stowed away. When the whole whalebone and blubber are thus procured, the two jaw-bones, from the quantity of oil which they contain, are usually hoisted on deck, and then only the kreng remains,—the huge carcass of flesh and bone, which is abandoned either to sink, or to be devoured by the birds and sharks, and bears, which duly attend on such occasions for their share of the prey.

It will be readily believed that none of the proceedings which we have now been considering are free from numerous perils. In a high sea the flensing itself is often difficult or impossible; and those upon the body of the fish are exposed to considerable risk. Sometimes they fall into the whale’s mouth, at the imminent hazard of being drowned. In the case of a heavy swell, they are drenched, and often washed over by the surge. Occasionally they have their ropes broken, and are wounded by each others’ knives. Mr. Scorseby mentions an instance of a man, who, after the flensing was completed, happened to have his foot attached by a hook to the carcass, when it was inadvertently let go. He caught hold of the gunwale of the boat; but the whole immense mass was now suspended by his body, occasioning the most excruciating torture, and even exposing him to the risk of being torn asunder; when his companions contrived afresh to hook the carcass with a grapnel, and brought it back to the surface.

In the account which we have presented of the capture, all circumstances are supposed to be favourable; but often it is the very reverse. A storm may arise, and a fog often envelopes the whole operations; immense islands or floes, i. e. masses of field-ice, may be impelled upon them by the tempest, and with such velocity as to overwhelm them in a moment, or a frost may make them fast in its hard and icy grasp. It is such incidents as these which make this employment one of the most trying and hazardous that can be pursued: while they occasionally lead to the most extraordinary adventures; as examples of which, we subjoin a very few narratives of facts.

The whale itself, though for the most part undesignedly, is the cause of the greatest number of accidents which occur. Injuries are often sustained by entanglement with the lines. A sailor belonging to the John of Greenock, in 1818, happening to slip into a coil of running rope, had his foot entirely cut off, and was obliged to have the lower part of the leg amputated. A harpooner belonging to the Hamilton, when engaged in lancing a whale, incautiously cast a little line under his foot: The pain of the lance induced the whale to dart suddenly downwards; his line began to run out from under his feet, and, in an instant, caught him by a turn round the body: He had just time to call out, “Clear away the line—Oh dear!” when he was almost cut asunder, dragged overboard, and never seen afterwards. The following graphic and tragical scene is taken from Mr. Scorseby’s Journal. Two boats belonging to the Baffin of Liverpool having been many hours absent from the ship, and occasioned much anxiety, were at last descried pulling towards the ship. On their approach, we were a little surprised by some unusual appearances, particularly their want of their proper complement of oars, and the solemn countenances of the rowers. As soon as they came within hail, I inquired what had happened. “A bad misfortune, indeed,” was the answer, “we have lost Carr!”—the principal officer of the boat. The particulars were as follow: The two boats which had been so long absent had in the outset separated from their companions, and allured by the chase of a whale, they proceeded till they were far out of sight of the ship. The whale led them amidst a great shoal; one rose so near the boat of which Carr was harpooner, that he ventured to pull towards it, though it was meeting him, and offered but an indifferent prospect of success: he, however, succeeded in harpooning it. The boat and fish passing each other with great rapidity after the stroke, the line was jerked out of its place, and, instead of “running” over the stem, was thrown over the gunwale; its pressure in this unfavourable position so careened the boat, that the side sank under water and began to fill. In this emergency the harpooner, who was a very fine active fellow, seized the line, and attempted to relieve the boat, by restoring it to its place; but a turn of the line flew over his arm, in an instant dragged him overboard, and plunged aim under water to rise no more! So sudden was the accident, that only one man, who had his eye upon him at the moment, was aware of what had happened; so that when the boat righted, which it immediately did, though half full of water, they all at once, on looking round at an exclamation from the man who had seen him launched overboard, inquired “What had got Carr ?” It is scarcely possible to imagine a death more awfully sudden or unexpected. The accident was, indeed, so instantaneous, that he had no time for the least exclamation; and the person who witnessed his extraordinary removal observed, that it was so exceedingly quick, that although his eye was upon him at the instant, he could scarcely distinguish the object as it disappeared.

A large whale became the subject of a general chase, says Scorseby, on the 23d of June. Being myself in the first boat which approached the fish, I struck my harpoon at arm’s-length, by which we fortunately evaded a blow which appeared to be aimed at the boat. Another boat then advanced, and another harpoon was stuck, but not with the same result; for the stroke was immediately returned by a tremendous blow from the fish’s tail. The boat was sunk by the shock, and at the same time whirled round with such velocity, that the boat-steerer was precipitated into the water on the side next to the fish, and carried down to a considerable depth by its tail. After a minute or so, he arose to the surface, and was taken up along with his companions into another boat.

Some boats of the Aim well, on the 26 th May, being in pursuit of whales, harpooned one. When struck, this individual only dived for a moment, and then rose again beneath the boat, struck it in the most vicious manner with its tail and fins, stove, upset it, and then disappeared. The crew, seven in number, got on the bottom of the boat; but the unequal action of the lines, which remained entangled with the boat, rolled it over occasionally, and thus plunged the crew repeatedly into the water. Four of them, after each immersion, recovered themselves and clung to the boat; but the other three were drowned before assistance could arrive. The four men being rescued, the attack on the whale was continued, and two more harpoons were struck. But the whale, irritated instead of being enervated by its wounds, recommenced its furious attack. His sea was in foams; its tail and fins were in awful play; and, in a short time, harpoon after harpoon drew out, and the fish escaped.

We produce the following account, not because we believe it refers to the Greenland Whale (we think it did not), but because the adventure elicited the statement, that the same feat is often exhibited by it; as is true, we believe, of all the larger genera. Dr. Foster, indeed, in Cook’s Voyages, very clearly tells us he saw it in the southern rorqual, as will be found in our account of that animal. The following anecdote is extracted from the interesting fragments of Captain B. Hall, and occurred when that gentleman was midshipman on board his majesty’s ship Leander, which was lying at the time in the roads of Bermuda, the locality already signalized. As on the former occasion, a great whale, between fifty and sixty feet in length, which was embayed within the coral rocks, and swimming about the vessel, soon attracted the attention of the crew. All hands crowded into the rigging to see it floundering about, till at length some one proposed to pay him a visit in one of the ship’s boats. The Captain says,

and away we (viz. some of the midshipmen) went, in our wild-goose whale-chase. All eyes were now upon us, and, after a pause, it was agreed unanimously that we should run right on board of him and take our chance. So we rowed forward, but the whale slipped down, clean out of sight, leaving only a monstrous pool, in the vortex of which we continued whirling about for some time. As we were lying on our oars, and somewhat puzzled what to do next, we beheld one of the most extraordinary sights in the world; at least, I do not remember to have seen many things which have surprised me so much, or made a deeper impression on my memory. Our friend the whale, probably finding the water disagreeably shallow, or perhaps provoked at not being able to disentangle himself from the sharp coral reefs, or from some other reason of pleasure or pain, suddenly made a leap out of the water. So complete was this enormous leap, that for an instant we saw him fairly up in the air, in a horizontal position, at a distance of at least twenty perpendicular feet over our heads! While in his progress upwards, there was in his spring some touch of the vivacity with which a trout or a salmon shoots out of the water; but he fell back again on the sea, like a huge log thrown on its broadside, and with such a thundering crash, as made all hands stare in astonishment, and the boldest held his breath for a time. Total demolition, indeed, must have been the inevitable fate of our party, had the whale taken his leap one minute sooner, for he would then have fallen plump on the boat. The wares caused by the explosion spread over half the anchorage; nor, if the Leander herself had blown up, could the effects have extended much farther.

After preparing the foregoing narrative for the press, Captain Hall, in order to fortify himself by the highest authority in these matters, wrote to Mr. Scorseby, detailing the fact, and inquiring if he had ever witnessed any thing of the sort. This elicited the following reply,

I have much pleasure in being able to speak to the point in attestation of the not infrequency of the exhibition of the high leaps which you witnessed, however ignorance might charge it as “very like a whale.” Whilst engaged in the northern whale fishery, I witnessed many similar exploits of whales of forty or fifty feet in length, forgetting their usual gravity, and making these odd exhibitions of their whole form from head to tail. Certainly, I have several times seen whales leap so high out of water, as to be completely in air, which, reckoning from the surface of the back, could scarcely be less than twenty feet, and possibly might be more. I have at different times pursued these frolicksome fish, but they have always escaped.

Mr. Scorseby remarks on another occasion,

In one of my earliest voyages, I observed a circumstance which excited my highest astonishment. One of the harpooners struck a whale, it dived, and all the assisting boats had collected round the fast boat before it arose to the surface. The first boat that approached it advanced incautiously. It rose with unexpected violence beneath the boat, and projected it and all the crew to the height of some yards into the air. It fell on its side, and cast all the men into the water; one was somewhat injured, but the rest escaped.

Captain Lyons of the Raith of Leith, in 1802, despatched four boats after a large whale on the coast of Labrador, and two of them succeeded in approaching so closely together, that two harpoons were struck at the same moment. The fish descended a few fathoms in the direction of another of the boats, which was on the advance,—rose beneath it, struck it with its head, and threw the boat, men, and apparatus about fifteen feet into the air. It was inverted by the stroke, and fell into the water with its keel upwards. All the people were picked up alive by the fourth boat, except one man, who, having got entangled in the boat, fell beneath it and was drowned.

The following anecdote illustrates the dangers arising from the ice. On the commencement of a heavy gale of wind, May 11, 1813, fourteen men put off in a boat from the Volunteer of Whitby, with the view of fixing an anchor on a large piece of ice, to which it was intended to moor the ship. The ship approached on a signal being made, and a rope was fixed to the anchor; but the ice shivering with the violence of the strain when the ship fell astern, the anchor flew out, and the ship went adrift. She attempted again to approach the ice, but in vain, owing to the violence of the gale, and scudded to leeward; thus leaving fourteen of her crew to a fate the most dreadful, the fulfilment of which appeared almost inevitable. The temperature was at 15° Fahrenheit, when these poor fellows were left upon a detached piece of ice of no considerable magnitude, without food, without shelter from the inclement storm, and deprived of every means of refuge, except a single boat, which, on account of the number of men and the violence of the storm, was incapable of conveying them to their ship. Death stared them in the face whichever way they turned, and a division of opinion ensued. Some were wishful to remain by the ice; but it could afford them no shelter and would probably be soon broken to pieces by the increasing swell; others were anxious to attempt to join their ship whilst she was yet in sight; but the force of the wind, the violence of the sea, and the smallness of the boat, were objections which would have appeared insurmountable to any but men in a state of despair. Judging that, by remaining on the ice, death was but retarded for a few hours, as the extreme cold must eventually benumb their faculties, they determined to make the attempt of rowing to the ship. Poor souls! What must have been their sensations at this moment? They made the daring experiment, when a few minutes trial convinced them that the attempt was impracticable. They then, with longing eyes, turned their efforts towards recovering the ice which they had left; but their utmost exertions proved unavailing. Every one of them now considered his doom as sealed: how great then must have been their delight, and how overpowering their sensations, when, at this critical juncture, a ship appeared in sight. She was advancing directly towards them; their voices were extended, and their flag displayed; though not heard, they were seen; and their mutual courses being so directed as to form the speediest union, a few minutes saw them in safety on the deck of the Lively.

But we must draw these interesting anecdotes to a close, and we shall do so by epitomizing a narrative from the Journal of Mr. Gibson, surgeon of the Trafalgar, which especially illustrates the great and numerous dangers which arise from icebergs, or more properly ice-islands.

August 12, 1822, four, p. m. Blowing a fresh gale with rain; the floe to which the ship was made fast set down under the lee-ice, so as to render our situation perilous. Towards midnight we became unexpectedly entangled among heavy pieces of ice and floes, where the ship received some severe blows on her beams. Finding it impossible to get out, we lay to, and in half an hour the ship was close beset. Though I retired to bed when the ship was enclosed, I expected every minute to be called to quit the ship. About three a. m., a large piece of ice pressing on the ship opposite my bed-cabin, broke two or three of the timbers with a dismal noise. Thinking all was over, I sprang out of bed. On going upon deck, I found to my great consternation that the ship was under an enormous pressure from numerous huge masses of ice surrounding her on all sides, without an opening of water sufficient for a boat within two miles: and no other ship was in sight, though the weather was clear. Most of the crew were providing for shipwreck, and many of the people were supplicating Divine Mercy for deliverance. At nine a. m. most gave up all hopes of saving the ship, and mine were very faint of saving ourselves. Four days’ allowance were cooked with all speed; other provisions were taken upon deck, and every thing of importance placed in readiness to be thrown on the ice. At eleven a. m., however, our drooping spirits were greatly revived by observing a slight relaxation of pressure; but in half an hour we were again thrown into despair by the return of the pressure. At noon, a man on the mast-head saw a ship (the Baffin), on which we instantly made signals of distress. At this time a dead silence prevailed throughout the ship; the crew looking on one another in awful suspense. At one time the pressure was so strong that the pannels of the captain’s state-room were forced out of their framing. About half an hour after this the ship was suddenly thrown upon her larboard side, on which all hands sprang upon deck. I shall never forget the confusion of the poor men, nor their wild looks when they gained the deck; for half of them were below at the time of the shock, and from the smallness of the hatch, only one could get up at a time. Some leaped upon the ship’s side and were going upon the ice, when the captain cried out to them to behave like men and stick to the ship as long as she remained above water! We all stood on that part of the ship nearest the ice, Math our bags of clothing on our shoulders. For fifteen minutes we had patiently waited our doom; when, by the interposition of Diving Providence, the wind changed,—the ice began to set off from the ship, and in fifteen minutes more she recovered her upright position. The water now rapidly spread among the surrounding ice, and, finally, the vessel w as warped out and floated uninjured on the waves.

We add one other more recent and still more awful occurrence. It is pretty generally known that the year 1830 proved peculiarly disastrous to the whale fishery, in as much as nineteen British vessels were totally wrecked during the season, and twelve more materially damaged, at a computed loss of upwards of £.142,000. Most of this injury was received in Baffin’s Bay, in the high latitude of Melville Bay, and was principally caused by the ice being drifted in immense quantities among the vessels, and so agitated during a succession of storms as finally to overwhelm them. We have room only for a short extract, taken from the highly interesting account given in the Edinburgh Cabinet Library (i. 448).

A small squadron, consisting of six very fine vessels, in attempting a passage to the west side, encountered a fresh gale, which drove in upon them masses of ice, by which they were soon beset. They ranged themselves under the shelter of a large floe, having water barely sufficient to float them. Here they formed a line, one behind another, standing close, stem to stem, and being at the same time so pressed against the ice, that in some places a boat-hook could with difficulty be inserted in the interval. In the evening of the 24th the sky darkened,—the gale increased—the floes began to overlap each other, and closed upon the ships in an alarming manner. The sailors then attempted to saw out a sort of dock, where they hoped to be relieved from this severe pressure; but soon a huge floe was driven upon them, with a violence completely irresistible. The Eliza Swan of Montrose received the first shock, and was saved only by the ice raising her up. It next struck the St. Andrew of Aberdeen midship, breaking about twenty of her timbers, and staving a number of casks; but it then fortunately moved along her side, and went off by the stern. Now, however, pursuing its career, it reached successively the Baffin of Leith; the Achilles of Dundee; the Ville de Dieppe, a French ship; and the Rattler of Leith, and dashed against them with such tremendous fury, that these four noble vessels, which had braved for years the tempests of the Polar deep, were, in a quarter of an hour, shattered into fragments. The scene was awful,—the grinding noise of the ice tearing upon their sides,—the masts breaking off and falling in every direction—were added to the cries of two hundred sailors leaping upon the frozen surface, with only such portions of their clothes as they could snatch in a single instant. The Rattler is said to have become the most complete wreck almost ever known. She was literally turned inside-out; and her stem and stem carried to the distance of a gunshot from each other;—and the Achilles had her sides nearly pressed together, her stern thrust out, her decks and beams broken into innumerable pieces. It has been well observed, under such circumstances as these, that a ship, even the strongest which human art can construct, becomes like an egg-shell, when opposed to the full force of so terrific an agent.

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The only other species of this genus, which we shall bring under review, is the Balæna Australis, or

Whale of the Southern Seas

Balæna Australis, Desmoulins.—B. Antarctica, Lesson.

This species, nearly up to the present period, has been confounded with the former, and probably we might still have been ignorant of the difference, had not M. de Lalande, during his residence at the Cape of Good Hope, succeeded by his energy and zeal in preparing one of these animals and transmitting its skeleton to France, where, on its arrival at the Jardin des Plantes, Cuvier soon detected its specific differences.

The whale of the southern seas is decidedly smaller than that of the north, measuring usually thirty-five or forty-five feet, but frequently extending to fifty feet. Its baleen, owing to the great curve of the upper jaw, appears to be relatively longer; usually reaching to about nine feet in a fish of forty feet. The head is very frequently covered with barnacles, having layer above layer, so that its aspect is very different from the northern Mysticetus, being often of a white colour. The pectoral fins appear to be longer and more pointed, whilst the lobes of the tail are less marked than in the former species. When cleared of its covering of shells, it is of a uniform black colour.

There seems to be good ground for supposing that this is the whale which has been so extensively fished in the southern seas as the Mysticetus; and that it was on its account that so many establishments were set agoing in many parts of the Brazils, which, after being carried on for a time with great success, are now nearly abandoned; D’Orbigny states, that in 1834 the whales had nearly disappeared from this coast. They seem, however, to frequent many other places in abundance: they are found in the Bays off Terra del Fuego, and on the western coast of South America, and they are also found around New Holland as well as the coast of Africa. It is in the month of June they visit the Cape of Good Hope, principally the females, and for the purpose of bringing forth their young.

The method of fishing this animal is very different from that we have been considering at such length, and is, upon the whole, a much more easy operation. According to Lesson, from whom we principally derive our account, this species is usually found at no great distance off the coast, and where the water is beginning to get shallow. When struck, it often dives to the bottom, the depth being seldom more than two hundred fathoms; it then returns to the surface after an interval of a few minutes; and occasionally dives a second, third, or even a fourth time. Sometimes it takes a horizontal course, and “runs” along shore twenty or thirty miles in a direct line. When observed by others of the species, they usually take the alarm, and running off, are followed by the fast whale as long as it is able. The harpooner generally endeavours to strike two harpoons at the first attack, both of which are attached to the same line, by which he has a double hold of the fish. The harpoons are usually thrown at the whale when at the distance of six or eight yards, and the lances, which are kept in fine order, are sometimes used in the same way. Two boats are considered sufficient to kill an individual of this species, so that, when it can be accomplished, two are struck at the same time. Whenever the animal re-appears on the surface, the fast boat is hoisted up towards it by means of the line; thus affording an opportunity to the harpooner to lance it, and enabling him often to capture his prize without the assistance of any other boat.

When it is flensed, which is done in the same manner as in the sperm whale, to be afterwards described, the upper jaw, with all the baleen attached, is usually hoisted on board. The whalebone is then divided into junks, and these, at the first leisure, are subdivided into single blades and stowed away after the gum is removed. If a storm happen to arise before the fish is flensed, a hawser is fastened to it, and the ship rides by it; at the conclusion of the gale it is brought along side and “cut in.” If, however, an interval of more than two or three days occur before the flensing is commenced, the whale swells, the blubber becomes impregnated with blood, and must be abandoned as useless.

Second Genus—Rorqualus³

Characters. No teeth; baleen short; has a dorsal fin; and folds under chin and throat.

Rorqual of the Southern Seas

Rorqualus Australis, Cuvier.—Balænoptera Australis, Lesson.

As after our account of the Greenland whale we added a few remarks concerning another mysticetus, which was an inhabitant of the southern seas, so the only other existing species of rorqual we shall here introduce to the notice of our readers, is one which within these few years has been discovered in the Southern Ocean, and ascertained to be a new and distinct species. These discoveries recall to mind an interesting remark of Buffon’s, in which he states, that every part of the globe, according to its parallel of latitude, has animals peculiar to itself. It is true, this law has not very frequently been demonstrated in reference to the inhabitants of the ocean, although it has been remarked that the place of their habitation is to be reckoned, not by the sea which they frequent, but rather by the latitude; and hence it is alleged, that the intertropical zone includes the same species throughout its whole circumference, and that as we remove from it, both northward and southwards, each parallel has its peculiar varieties, whose limits are terminated by the different meridians of the globe. In the present state of our knowledge, it would be going too far to affirm that none of the Cetacea plough the wave indifferently in every clime, but, as we have seen, Mr. Scorseby decidedly states the mysticetus has never been seen in European seas; and since that time, it has been proved that there is both a distinct mysticetus and rorqual in the Southern Ocean. This then is sufficient to excite renewed attention to the subject, and the inquiry should henceforward be prosecuted with fresh zeal.

The Southern Rorqual was first examined at the Cape of Good Hope by M. Delalande. Its most evident peculiarity is a long dorsal fin, which, instead of being placed near the tail, is situated immediately over the pectorals. The body is black above and pure white beneath, except within the folds, which are of a well marked rosy hue. Cuvier has accurately detailed the differences in the osteology, and to his work we shall refer the scientific reader (Oss. Foss. v. 372); only remarking it has seven cervical vertebras, fourteen dorsal, and fourteen pair of ribs, and thirty-one lumbar and caudal, making a total of fifty-two vertebræ.

The Southern Rorqual but rarely approaches the coasts of the Cape, since it is stated that only two or three are observed there during the year; nor does any one think of pursuing it, since its great power and velocity make it difficult and dangerous of capture, and the product by no means repays the risk and labour.

It is manifestly this species which Dr. Foster states that he encountered near Terra del Fuego, when returning to England with the illustrious Cook. As illustrative of its habits we shall give an extract:—

When between Terra del Fuego and Statten Island, Lieutenant Pickersgill was sent into Success Bay, and on this occasion it was remarked that no less than thirty large whales played about them in the water. Whenever they were seen blowing to windward, the whole ship was infected with a most destestable rank and poisonous stench, which went off in the space of two or three minutes. Sometimes these huge animals lay on their backs, and with their long pectoral fins beat the surface of the sea, which always caused a great noise, equal to the explosion of a swivel. This kind of play has doubtless given rise to the mariners’ story of a fight between the thresher and the whale; the former of which is said to leap out of the water in order to fall heavily upon the latter. Here we had an opportunity of observing the same exercise many times repeated, and discovered that all the belly and under side of the fins and tail are of a white colour, whereas the rest is black. As we happened to be only sixty yards from one of these animals, we perceived a number of longitudinal furrows on its belly. Besides flapping with their fins in the water these unwieldy animals, of forty feet in length, sometimes fairly leapt into the air, and dropt down again with a heavy fall. The prodigious quantity of power required to raise such a vast creature out of the water is astonishing, and their peculiar economy cannot but give room to much reflection. (Cook’s in Kerrs Voyages, xv. 4.)

Though not without some hesitation, yet we are inclined to believe that this is the species which by the southern whalers is denominated the black fish or black whale, and which most frequently they are solicitous to avoid. It is this whale which Captain Colnett states that he saw, in innumerable shoals, on the shores of California. (Voy. to the S. Pacific.)

One other of the habits of this species we shall mention. The black fish, of all other whales, most frequently place themselves in a perpendicular position, with the head only above water, presenting in this position a most extraordinary appearance when seen from a distance, resembling large black rocks in the midst of the ocean; this posture they seem to assume for the purpose of surveying more perfectly, or more easily, the surrounding expanse. (Beale.)

The southern seas supply the appropriate food of these whales in the richest luxuriance. Thus, M. Lesson, who spent a considerable time in these latitudes, states, that the whale does not so much seek its food as its food seeks it. The sea is often very rough, and the height and violence of the waves is such, that the spray in breaking over the vessel brings along with it great quantities of medusa and flying fish. It is under these circumstances that these giants are most active, as if enjoying the storm, and then appear busiest in pursuing their prey.

Fossil Rorquals, etc.

We have already hinted that most of the Cetacea have been found in a fossile state, and we scarcely know any thing which is more calculated to demonstrate the extraordinary revolutions which have taken place on the surface of the globe, than the fact that specimens of these great whales are now to be found in the bowels of the earth, in the centre of mighty continents, and elevated high in vast ranges of mountains. Thus there are distinct records of portions of skeletons of whales having been discovered on the continent of Europe, as well as in various parts of Britain, &c.

One of these was discovered by M. Cortesi in 1806 on the east flank of Monte Pulgnasco, one of the Apennines, about six hundred feet under the summit, which is itself elevated twelve hundred feet above the neighbouring plain. In this part, the hill consists of regular beds of bluish clay, inclined towards the north, and filled with marine shells. The whale was found lying in the same direction with the strata which inclosed it, the head pointing northwards. This skeleton was nearly perfect, although some of the ribs were somewhat out of their proper position. The vertebræ were lying on the right side; a great many teeth of a small species of shark, and innumerable shells surrounded it, especially a small variety of oyster, many of which were attached to the left side of the vertebras, lying uppermost. The regular attachment of these oysters is well worthy of consideration, as it goes to show that they must have been fixed to their position while alive, and consequently, that the skeleton had long lain at the bottom of the ocean.

The head is six feet long, and the vertebras occupied a space of fifteen feet, giving twenty-one feet for the whole length of the skeleton. According to Cuvier, the form of the head presents, at one and the same time, all the characters of a new sub-genus and of a distinct species. The other bones agree with the indications supplied by the cranium. It had twelve pair of ribs, the largest of which, along its convexity, was three feet seven inches; the vertebrae were forty-one in number. In the Dict. Class. d’Hist. Nat. this species is denominated Balæna Cuvieri by M. Desmoulins.

M. Cortesi discovered another skeleton in 1816, in the same kind of strata, and in a neighbouring valley. It was not in such good preservation, and could not so easily be disengaged from the surrounding rock. Its head was only four feet long, and the total length twelve feet, five inches. It was situated at a lower level than the other, at 1200 feet under the summit of Monte Pulgnasco, and 1400 feet under that of Monte Grogo, the two nearest hills. This has been designated, by the authority last quoted, B. Cortesii.

A cetaceous animal of much larger dimensions was discovered in 1775 in Paris. A wine merchant in La Rue Dauphine, while cutting trenches in his cellar, discovered a fossile bone of considerable dimensions in a yellowish and sandy clay, which appears to be the natural soil of the locality. Solicitous to spare the labour necessary for its entire extraction, he broke it, and raised a portion weighing two hundred weight. This attracted the attention of the curious; a cast was taken by Lamanon, and a sketch and description were published in the Jour. de Physique for 1781. This cast, with additional sketches, fell into the hands of Cuvier, and he, with that success which attended all his labours in this department, detected it to be a portion of the right temporal bone of a whale. He compared it with corresponding portions of others, and concluded that the length of its head was about sixteen feet, and that the total length of the animal to which it belonged could not be less than fifty-four feet, without including the tail or lips, which would raise its size to about sixty feet. Cuvier moreover remarks, that although this size agrees with that of the mysticetus, yet the details of the shape, and the comparison of the proportions, indicated decided differences. His conclusion is, that, according to all appearance, this fragment belongs to a cetaceous animal of a species which is unknown, even among fossiles.

Several remains of fossile whales of great dimensions have been discovered, deposited in marine diluvium in various parts of Scotland. Three instances of this sort have been particularly pointed out. One of these occurred at Airthrey, on the Forth, near Alloa. The bones belonging to an animal about seventy-two feet long, were imbedded in clay, twenty feet higher than the surface of the highest tide of the river Forth at the present day; and are now deposited in the Royal Edinburgh Museum. See “Mr Bald on the Skeleton of a Whale,” Edin. Phil. Jour. i. 393. Another consisted of one vertebra only, found twelve feet above the level of the sea at Strathpeffer, Ross-shire, as described by Sir George Mackenzie in vol. x. of the Edin. Phil. Trans. The third was found at Dunmore Park, Stirlingshire. The bones of this specimen belong to an individual seventy or seventy-five feet long; and are imbedded in clay twenty feet higher than the present level of the Forth.—Edin. Phil. Jour. xi. p. 220. 415. The exact species to which these remains belong has not yet been determined.

In Loudon’s Magazine for 1831, p. 164, the following statement occurs:—

Mr. Mantell, about two years ago, discovered, on Brighton Cliffs, part of a jaw-bone, nine feet long, of a whale in a fossile state. It was lying included in the ancient diluvial shingle of the cliffy in which the teeth and bones of elephants are also found.

This circumstance is mentioned by Mr. Mantell in his Geology of the South-east of England, 1833, p. 42. He moreover states that a narwhal and porpoise have been found in alluvial deposits of the district; but scarcely any particulars are given.

Third Genus—Cacalot⁵

The general characters which belong to this genus are the great head, but no baleen; teeth in the lower jaw only; spiracle single; supplying the spermaceti and ambergris of commerce.

The South Sea Fishery

The method of conducting the southern fishery differs in several particulars from that followed in the north, and these differences we shall now endeavour to point out. Some of the ships are fitted out solely for fishing the Sperm Whale, whilst others keep a sharp look-out for the mysticetus also; and others, it would appear, in lack of these, hesitate not to attack almost any kind of whale that comes within their reach.

When a whale appears in view, the signal is given, and the boats hanging at the ship’s side, and completely ready for the attack, are instantly lowered. These boats are supplied with a mast and sail, and plenty fresh water, with headsman, steersman, and rowers; with harpoons, two of which are attached to the lines, with lances and a buoy to which a signal is attached, &c. The boats steer so as to approach the animal from behind, and if there be more than one in view, each boat fastens to a distinct fish, and each crew kill their own. Sometimes the first stroke of the harpoon is mortal, but generally it is otherwise, and the harpooner on the instant, rapid like lightning, darts his second harpoon. On this the animal, irritated by the pain, plunges into the deep; and this movement, which the fishers call “sounding,” requires the greatest attention lest the line be entangled. When the line is exhausted, the buoy with its flag is attached to the extremity, and thrown into the sea. This buoy, carried along with the animal, is the compass which guides the boats till they again seize the end of the line when their victim is enfeebled, and its speed diminished by the loss of blood. So soon as its energy is relaxed, the line is carried round the bollard, and all the resistance is offered that can safely be employed. When the animal requires again to come to the surface, the boat pulls upon the line, approaches the fast fish as rapidly as possible, and renews the contest. On thrusting or darting his lance, the headsman calls out “Stern-all,” when the boat immediately recedes. Upon feeling the lance, the whale generally plunges, and throws itself in all directions, lashing the water with its tail, and threatening destruction with its formidable jaw. The dying struggles are sometimes tremendous, and the boats at this time generally keep aloof, as otherwise they might be dashed to pieces. (See Plate x.)

The larger whales, such as yield eighty or more barrels of oil, not being nearly so active, are generally, by expert whalers, killed easily, and with less danger than the smaller ones. These enormous creatures, however, are sometimes known to turn upon their persecutors with unbounded fury, destroying every thing that meets them in their course. Mr. Beale was witness of an occurrence of this sort, off the coast of Japan, in July 1832. Captain William Swain of the Sarah and Elizabeth of London had, with two other boats, been engaged in chasing a large whale nearly the whole of the day. At four p. m. the captain was considerably a-head of the other boats, and had succeeded in harpooning it; and, being a dexterous whaler, he succeeded in lancing the animal twice before it recovered from the blow; these wounds having penetrated the chest, caused the abundant ejection of blood through the spiracle: it however suddenly descended to the depth of about forty fathoms, and as suddenly rose, striking the boat with excessive force, which threw it into the air in fragments, with the men and every thing it contained. The men, though much bruised, managed to support themselves with oars, &c. for about three quarters of an hour, when they were relieved by the arrival of another of the boats. All this time the whale continued near them, and several sharks, attracted by the blood. The whale was finally secured.

Numberless stories are told of fighting whales, one or two of which we shall mention. In the year 1804, the ship Adonis, being in company with several others, struck a large whale off the coast of New Zealand, which “stove” and destroyed nine boats before breakfast, and the chase was consequently given up. After destroying the boats belonging to many ships, this whale was at last captured, and many harpoons of various vessels were found in its body. This whale was extensively known under the designation of “New Zealand Tom,” and many traditions about it are carefully preserved.

But it is not boats only, for ships even are sometimes destroyed by these powerful creatures. It is a well authenticated fact, that the American ship, the Essex, was destroyed in the South Pacific Ocean by an enormous Sperm Whale. When the greater part of the crew were absent in the boats killing whales, the few people remaining on board saw an enormous whale come up close to the ship, and when very near, it appeared to sink down for the purpose of avoiding the vessel; and in doing so, struck its body against some part of the keel, which was broken off by the force of the blow and floated to the surface. The whale was then observed to rise a short distance from the ship, and to come with apparently great fury towards it, striking one of the bows with its head with amazing force, and so completely staved it in. The ship of course immediately filled, and fell over on her side; in which dreadful position the poor fellows in the boats saw their only home, and many hundred miles distant from the nearest land! On returning to the wreck, they found the few who had been left on board, hastily congregating in the remaining boat, in which they had scarcely taken refuge when the vessel capsized. With much difficulty they obtained a scanty supply of provisions from the wreck, their only support for the long and dreary passage before them to the coast of Peru, whither they endeavoured to make their way. Three only of the whole crew survived; the remainder having perished under unheard of sufferings and privations, over which we willingly draw a veil. These three were found in a state of stupefaction, allowing their boat to drift along where the winds and waves listed. One of the survivors was the master: by kind and careful attention they were eventually rescued from the jaws of death.

The flensing or “cutting in” process is somewhat peculiar. On being attached to the side of the vessel, a frame work is thrown over the fish, and a strap of blubber is cut in a spiral direction, which being raised by certain purchases, turns the fish round as on an axis till nearly the whole blubber is stript off. To show how this process is conducted, and as exhibiting a faithful outline, taken by measurement, of a young individual of this genus, we refer to the accompanying cut copied from a sketch of Colnett’s.

The tackles are hooked at d; a, a, a, are spiral stripes successively removed; when removed as far as e, the carcase will no longer “cant” in the tackles, and it is therefore cut through at the line e, e, and also at g, g, the tail being of no value. The compartment a shews the part of the head which contains the liquid oil. Being suspended by the tackles, the front part is cut off at b, b, and the oil baled out with buckets. When the whale is small, the head is divided at the line c′, c′, previous to its being hoisted on deck; the space between a′, a′, and c′, c′, also contains much oil. b is the blow-hole; h, the ear.

The head matter when congealed is put into casks in its crude state, and refined at the conclusion of the voyage. The blubber, however, is reduced into oil immediately in “try-works,” with which every ship is provided for the purpose. The coppers in the try-works are two in number, and are placed near the fore hatchway; they are surrounded with a casing of brick-work, which forms a cistern, the water in which is changed every two hours so as to defend the deck from injury. The fuel is the blubber fritters, which produce a fierce fire. A large fish produces about three tons of oil, a small one from one to two. A hundred whales sometimes go to form the cargo of a ship, the produce of which, in boiled sperm oil, may be from one hundred and fifty to two hundred tons, besides head matter.

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The South Sea fishery was not regularly established as a branch of British trade till towards the close of the last century. The vessels are usually between three and four hundred tons burden; and the voyage occupies frequently three and even four years; but when all kinds of whales are attacked, it may be stated as lasting from twenty months to two years. In the course of the voyage they occasionally put into harbours to refit and refresh the crew. The officers and crew are stimulated to exertion by certain shares of the cargo obtained. The captain receives perhaps a twelfth; the harpooner a fortieth, &c. Several years ago, the complete outfit amounted, besides the vessel, to about £.4000, and a cargo of the highest value might yield £.25,000 or £.30,000. The success was tolerably certain; and the trade has been found upon the whole lucrative. In 1791, seventy-five vessels were engaged; but the number has not since been so great. In 1830, only thirty-one ships were sent out, of the burden of eleven thousand tons, all from the port of London, carrying nine hundred and thirty-seven men. The relative values of the products of the different fisheries may be seen from the market quotations of November 1835. Sperm oil, £.75 per ton. Greenland, £.40. South Sea oil, £.42. Pale seal, £.43. Whalebone from northern fishery, £.250 per ton. Whalebone from southern fishery, £.145.

The Americans for a long time have prosecuted this trade with great vigour, and more success perhaps than any other people. They commenced it in 1690, and for about fifty years found an abundant supply of fish on their own shores; but the whales having abandoned these resorts, the American navigators entered with extraordinary ardour into the fisheries carried on in the northern and southern oceans. Mr. Burke, in his famous speech on American affairs in 1774, adverted to this wonderful display of daring enterprise as follows:—

While we are carrying on the whale fishery under the Arctic circle, we hear that they have pierced into the opposite region of Polar cold; that they are at the antipodes, and engaged under the frozen serpent of the south. Falkland island, which seems too remote and too romantic an object for the grasp of national ambition, is but a stage and resting-place for their victorious industry. Nor is the equatorial heat more discouraging to them than the accumulated winter of both poles. We learn, that when some of them draw the line or strike the harpoon on the coast of Africa, others run the longitude and pursue their gigantic game along the coast of Brazil. No sea but what is vexed with their fisheries. No climate that is not witness of their toil. Neither the perseverance of Holland, nor the dexterous and firm sagacity of English enterprise, ever carried this most perilous mode of hardy industry to the extent to which it has been pursued by this recent people; a people who are still in the gristle, and not hardened into manhood.

Within the last few years the colony of New South Wales has been busily employed in this branch of commerce, and with great benefit to those engaged in it. The colonists are situated so much nearer the fishing grounds, that neither the time nor the expense of outfit can be compared with that of the ships equipped from Britain. Of sperm oil there was exported in 1835, two thousand nine hundred and eighty-nine tons, valued at £.151,738; and of black oil, fourteen hundred and seventy-seven tons, valued at £.19,357.

We annex, from Mr. Beale’s work, a very condensed enumeration of the various stations in which this whale has been seen in greatest number:—New Guinea, New Iceland, New Britain, King’s Mill Group, Byron’s Island, equinoctial line from longitude 168° to 175° east; Ellis Group; off the east coast of New Holland; off New Zealand and the Navigators’ Islands, coast of California, Chili, and Peru; the Gallapagos; the Molluccas; Straits of Timor; the Mozambique Channel; off Japan and the Cliina seas; Looehar Islands, &c. &c.

These localities, it will be observed, are all in the southern hemisphere; but it must not thence be inferred that Sperm Whales are confined to its seas. We have seen that at one time they frequented the shores of North America, and they are also found in the Northern Pacific. Though not observed in great troops, yet they are said to be sometimes taken in Orkney and Shetland (Statistical Account, v. 190), and they are occasionally stranded on the British coasts. Thus Mr. Pennant states that a large specimen was stranded on the coast of Norfolk, which is particularly commemorated by Sir Thomas Brown (Zoology, ii. 500); one came ashore, fifty-two feet long, in 1689, at Limekilns in the Forth, and is described by Sibbald; two others, each measuring fifty-four feet, were in 1769 cast ashore near the village of Cramond in the same Frith (Statistical Account, i. 220); and one, sixty-three feet long, was in 1756 stranded on the west of Ross shire: one, fifty-eight feet long, was stranded on the Yorkshire coast, as noticed by Mr. Anderson Alderson in the Trans. of the Cambridge Phil. Soc. for 1827; seventeen were cast ashore in the Elbe in 1723, half of which were males; and thirty-one, in 1784, were stranded at one time in the Bay of Audierne in Lower Brittany, nearly all of which were females, (Fr. Cuvier’s Hist. p. 268. 271.) It would thus however appear they are, alive or dead, but rare in this part of the world.

On its introduction into commerce, spermaceti, to which, when refined, the French have applied the name of cetine, was chiefly employed in medicine, in which its use is still continued. It has also been freely used in the cosmetic art. Its largest and most valuable application, however, has long been in the manufacture of candles, in which it maintains a considerable rivalry with wax, as cheaper and not less elegant and agreeable.

Ambergris, according to its quantity, is a peculiarly valuable product of the Sperm Whale; often, however, we might say generally, it is not at all found in them. Sometimes it sells in London not much under £.1 an ounce, but frequently two or three voyages are accomplished, and successfully too, without any ambergris being obtained. It is seldom or ever found in the young fish; but only in those of full size, or rather of great age. It is generally considered the result of some diseased process in the intestinal canal, to which the individual has been subjected. The quantity obtained, therefore, is very various. The mate of the Ocean reported to Messrs. Quoy and Gaimard, as an extraordinary occurrence, that, on one occasion, he extracted fifty pounds from a single animal. We remember seeing it stated on good authority, that a single piece of precisely the same weight was found by some sailors on the coast of the Bermudas, who, calculating that they had made their fortune, lost no time in escaping to England. Still larger masses sometimes, though rarely, have been found; the largest we have seen mentioned weighed two hundred pounds. (Fr. Cuvier’s Hist. 303 302.) Ambergris is found in considerable quantity on the coasts of the Indian Archipelago. It is highly esteemed by the Malays, as by most orientalists; some of whom reserve it exclusively for the use of the rajahs. The coasts of Formosa, of the Molluccas, of Brazil, the Antilles, and Madagascar are also famous for it. It occurs also, but in much smaller quantities, in the Baltic and other European shores. Its use is almost wholly confined to the perfumer.

Among many of the South Sea islanders a most extraordinary value is attached to the teeth of this animal. They offer them as gifts to their idols, or adorn with them their queens. In their estimation, they form the ne plus ultra of what is valuable; and thus they become the most precious subjects of barter, by which most of the whale captains purchase fresh provisions for their crews, or what else of value can be obtained on the islands. It has been mentioned that the inhabitants of the Marquisas consider a good one equal to great riches; and the same is the estimate made by the inhabitants of Fidjis, Rotouma, and by many others of this singular and simple race.

The Heterodons

Leaving the large headed whales, we come now to the second subdivision, which has been proposed by Blainville, and adopted by Lesson and other systematists. Besides having the head of the ordinary proportion which, with other characters, distinguishes it from the first subdivision, it is distinguished from the third and last chiefly by the teeth. Whilst this third is almost uniformly supplied with a great number of teeth in both jaws, amounting sometimes to hundreds, this second subdivision has generally a very small number indeed, which are moreover very heterogeneous, confined sometimes to the one jaw, and sometimes, in other genera, to the other. Sometimes, as in the narwhal, they are not within the mouth at all; and several genera are believed to be even still more destitute of teeth. From this great paucity, and also from their variety, Blainville has denominated this subdivision heterodon (from ἑτερος and οδκς). It will be perceived that the character is not a very striking, or perhaps even a very natural and positive one: but, as we presume not to introduce a new classification ourselves, we take it as we find it, and follow it as far as it goes, because we regard it useful. It includes the Narwhal or Sea Unicorn, the Diodons or two-teethed whales, the Hyperoodon of Cuvier, the Aodon or toothless whale, and the Ziphius, which includes some of the most important fossiles which have been discovered.

Fourth Genus—Narwhalus

Distinguishing Characters.—This genus has no teeth, properly so called, but only two tusks, long and pointed, usually called horns, springing from the intermaxillary bones, and directed forwards in the axis of the body; it has no dorsal fin.

Fifth Genus—Diodons

The general characters may be stated to be, their having two teeth only in the lower jaw, none in the upper; forehead depressed; lower jaw much larger than upper, and convex.

Diodons, or Two-Teethed Whales

Several species are said to belong to this genus; different, of course, from Hunter’s, subsequently discussed. The first we mention is, according to Lesson, the

Diodon Desmaresti

Delphinus Desmaresti, Risso.

Risso (Hist. Nat. Nice. t. iii. pl. 2. fig. 3.) describes this cetaceous animal as having a very thick body, especially in the middle, diminishing towards the extremities, and becoming lank in the abdomen. Forehead not prominent, but depressed, terminating fly a long muzzle; upper jaw short and without teeth; lower jaw much larger, convex below, and having near its extremity two large conical teeth, three inches long and one broad; the eye small and oval, with blue iris; spiracle large, semi-lunar; pectorals short, dorsal nearly over the vent; tail large and festooned. The upper portion of the head and body of the colour of polished steel, with a number of lines and white streaks, occurring without regularity; belly white; inside of the mouth bluish-black. Length of the specimen fifteen feet. According to Risso, this species frequents the depths of the Mediterranean, where it is rare: he supplies no information regarding its habits.

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We are glad we can present to the reader a representation of the second species, according to Lesson. It is the

Sixth Genus—Hyper­oodontes⁶

Lacépède, Cuvier.

Characters.—Three enormous maxillary crests rise over the cranium and are separated by deep furrows; these occasion the remarkably rounded and prominent forehead, with the short and strong beak; palate supplied with small false tuberculous teeth? The horns of the crescent-shaped spiracle turned backwards.

Seventh Genus—Aodons

Characters.—Body fusiform; distinct appearance of neck; forehead prominent; blow-hole with horns projecting forwards, jaw prolonged in form of a subcylindrical beak, in same continuous line with the head; no baleen; no teeth; no rugosities on the palate.

Eighth Genus—Ziphius

Of the next genus, Ziphius, introduced by Cuvier, we shall, in this place, allude but to one of the three species he has established, and this for the purpose of satisfying the reader of the accuracy of those general statements we have formerly made concerning this most important, but somewhat dry portion of the order. The genus is fossile. The specimens, or rather fragments, which Cuvier possessed, were found in various parts of Europe. He states that their craniums ally them to the Cachalots, and still more to the Hyperoodons, many of the distinguishing characters of which they possess. They all appear to have been quite destitute of teeth.

Ziphius Planirostris

Cuv. Oss. Foss. v. 352).

This species was formed on the examination of many heads which were discovered in 1809, completely petrified, in excavating the docks at Antwerp, where they occupied the deepest parts. They were lying half a mile from the banks of the Escaut, thirteen feet above the lowest run of the water, and thirty feet under the mean level of the town, below several strata of sand and clay, of various thickness, which contained a great number of shells and teeth of sharks, &c. It would appear clear that this species never could have had any teeth, and to use Cuvier’s words, it is certain that there are none of the Cetæ whose osteology is known, which exhibits a structure similar to that which belongs to this tribe.

Third Subdivision

Previous to the present century, the whole of the remaining ordinary Cetacea, which go to form the third subdivision, were, with those of the subdivision we have just left, classed by naturalists under the general term Delphinus, or Dolphins. Whenever, in fact, one of the Cetacea was discovered whose head bore the usual proportion to the body, and whose jaws were supplied with teeth, it was ranked as a dolphin. When the number of known species was but small, and the characters but ill defined, this arrangement was perhaps sufficient; but nowadays, when their number is greatly increased, and when those who know the subject best declare that a small proportion only of those which really exist have hitherto been described, it becomes necessary to multiply generic divisions; and the term dolphin must be restricted to an individual, though very numerous genus. Lacépède led the way in this division, by the introduction of his Delphinaptera, which was immediately adopted by Cuvier, Scorseby, &c. Cuvier, again, separated the Porpoises from the dolphins; and Blainville increased the number of genera by adopting the Oxyptera (Cetæ with two dorsal fins) of Rafinesque, and introducing the Delphinorhyncus. Lesson has still further added to this list. To us it appears that the present state of the science requires no fewer than the following divisions, which in this place we shall do no more than enumerate. The first section

1. Includes those which have no dorsal fin.
   • Genus a. Having the head globe-shaped. Beluga.
   • Genus b. Having a slender beak. Delphinapterus.
2. Includes those which have a dorsal fin.
   • Genus c. Having the head globe-shaped. Globiceps.
   • Genus d. With a short snout, uniformly rounded. Phocæna.
   • Genus e. With a snout and a distinct beak. Delphinus.
   • Genus f. With a much longer snout and beak, and having no furrow between them. Delphinorhyncus.
   • Genus g. Without a snout and with a long beak. Soosoo.
   • Genus h. Having a long beak bristled with hair, and both incisor and molar teeth. The Inia.
   • Genus i. Having two dorsal fins. Oocypterus.

On this classification we would simply remark, that we have not at all innovated, but only followed what has already been introduced by able and celebrated naturalists. It would be an easy matter to state objections to this arrangement, more particularly perhaps to its nomenclature, and to demonstrate that it is susceptible of improvement. We feel, however, that we are not the parties to attempt this improvement, which moreover should not too hastily be effected. We consider the above a great stretch and improvement upon any that has yet been offered to the British public. The characters, taken from the fascial line, are conspicuous on the slightest inspection, and we believe they are for the most part fixed and certain. The majority of them are exhibited on Plate i. s, the Globiceps; t, the Porpoise; u, the Dolphin; v, the Delphinorhyncus; w, the Soosoo.

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We now proceed to the genus Beluga,

Ninth Genus—Beluga

The osteology of the cranium, described by Baron Cuvier, supplies generic characters which distinguish this from the neighbouring genera. It is these peculiarities which give the shape to the head; obtuse, conical, and rounded. It is distinguished from the Globiceps by not having a dorsal fin; and from the Delphinapterus, by not having, as it has, a prolonged snout, like a flattened beak.

Tenth Genus—Delphin­apterus

The Delphinapterus is distinguished from the Dolphin by having no dorsal fin; and from the Beluga, by having in front of the head a slender beak, flattened transversally, and separated from the head by a deep furrow. The Beluga, moreover, belongs to the northern hemisphere, the Delphinapterus to the southern.

Our space will not permit us to introduce the D. of Commerson, or any other species belonging to this genus.

Eleventh Genus—Globi­cephalus

Thin genus is characterized by having no visible snout; the head is entirely globular, and the mouth is not so much at its anterior extremity as at its under part. In this it resembles the Beluga, but differs from it in having a dorsal fin, as well as by many other marked distinctions.

Besides these two species here delineated and described, two other living ones have been named, though their existence is not quite established, the G. Leucocephalus and G. Fuscus. We must now, however, pass on to the

Fossile Globiceps

Globiceplialus Cortesi, Cuvier.—Delphinus Cortesi, Fossile.

We shall here shortly allude to a fossile species which was discovered by Cortesi, and arranged in this genus by Cuvier. This was the first of the magnificent discoveries made by M. Cortesi of Plaisance, on the Appennine hills to the south of Fiorenzuola. In 1800, this enthusiastic naturalist procured the fossile bones of an elephant and rhinoceros on the top of Mount Pulgnasco, one of the hills which descends from the Appennines to the Po, they were almost on the surface. Parallel to Mount Pulgnasco on the east, and separated by the streamlet called Straraonte, there descends another hill, called Torazza, which is lower, and, like the base of Pulgnasco, is composed of blue clay filled with marine shells. It was in this hill, at about one hundred and twenty feet above the Stramonte, that M. Cortesi, attracted by one of the vertebrae which had been brought him, made search, and discovered the almost entire skeleton of this globiceps, a circumstance which prompted him to all his subsequent researches, of which we have seen so many happy results.

We must not enter into many details, but may state that the head was almost entire, as also the lower jaw; even the bones of the ear were in situ. Each jaw had twenty-eight teeth; but supposing that it was ascertained, that some of the living species had this precise number, yet this specimen would still differ in certain essential and specific characters. It had thirteen dorsal vertebrae. After considering all the data, M. Cortesi inferred, with much appearance of truth, that this animal must have been about thirteen feet long. We conclude the notice of this wonderful animal of stone in the words of Cuvier,—

From all these considerations I cannot but conclude, that this fossile Cetacea is of a species different from all those of this genus, which, up to the present time, are distinctly known.

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We now proceed to the fourth genus into which we divided these lesser Cetae, viz. the Phocæna or Porpoise Genus.

Twelfth Genus—Phocæna

Distinguishing Characters.—The Porpoises have a short snout uniformly rounded to the extremity.

The next species we introduce is by much the largest and most remarkable of the genus. It is

We shall next notice

Thirteenth Genus—Delphinus

Having a convex forehead; the snout, in form of a beak, is distinguished from the forehead by a marked furrow.

We have already mentioned, that formerly the genus Delphinus included the four preceding genera and the succeeding genus. Lacépède, after separating the Delphinapteræ, introduced eleven species into his history; and Cuvier, after withdrawing the porpoises likewise, and introducing other improvements into the classification, reduced the number of living species, established in 1823, to five (Oss. Foss. v. 275). Though the old genus Delphinus has now been broken down into no less than nine subdivisions, and there are many species in these; yet in the genus of proper Dolphins the number of species already amounts to nearly twenty, and it is the opinion of those most conversant with the subject, that this forms but a small proportion of the existing varieties. This great increase has been owing principally to the discoveries of recent voyagers, and these chiefly French naturalists, who have been sent out by their government in connexion with national voyages of discovery for scientific and commercial purposes; and who, after being rewarded for their labours, were also enabled, at the public expense, to communicate their discoveries in splendid works, far beyond the risk of private adventure. Not to go so far back as Peron, we shall only name Quoy and Gaimard, the authors of the Zoologie de L’Uranie; Lesson and Carnot, who published the Zoologie de La, Coquille; and along with them M. Dussumier, who, on his own account, made several voyages to China, and, unfortunately for science, died before he had digested and published the vast stock of his materials. It is by these gentlemen that the greatest number has within these few years been added to the list.

The general features which distinguish the Dolphins are few and simple. Their snout is considerably elongated, broad at the base, round at the extremity, resembling considerably a goose’s-bill, whence they derive their common appellation. The beak is always flattened transversely, largest at its posterior parts, and both jaws are supplied with many and sharp teeth; it is also separated from the forehead by a distinct groove. The dorsal fin is always single.

It used to be held that the Common Dolphin was an inhabitant of every sea throughout the world. This appeared the more credible since the strength of the animals, and the velocity of their swimming, exceeding that of a ship in full sail, would readily account for their appearance in all seas, and even at the opposite poles. A very different opinion, however, is now gaining ground, confirmatory of a sentiment of Buffon s in relation to land animals, viz. that every distinct species has its distinct locality, and this circumscribed within rather narrow limits. It is more difficult of course to ascertain the truth of this proposition as it regards the inhabitants of the water than of the land, and yet many facts go to establish its truth with regard to the Cetacea. Much, however, remains to be done on this and other points, ere we arrive at a perfect natural history of the order. All that we can attempt in this place, is to offer some remarks on the species which we have exhibited in the plates.

The next Dolphin we present to the notice of the reader is that of the Benedictin Pernetty

But we must bid adieu to these numerous dolphins, with a short notice of

Delphinus Youngii (Fossile)

As after most of the other genera we have introduced some slight notice of nearly allied fossiles, so we shall here mention that a specimen of a dolphin in a fossile state was discovered in 1819, by Mr. Young of Whitby, in the vast aluminous schistus of the Yorkshire coast. It was embedded in the alum rock, where it is washed by the tide, and is covered at high water, half a mile east of Whitby harbour, and ten yards from the face of the steep cliff which there fronts the German Ocean. The cliff at that place is about a hundred and eighty feet in height, which of course was the depth of this skeleton from the surface, before that part of the cliff which formerly covered it was washed away. Though the skeleton was wonderfully entire, yet we are not surprised that Mr. Young found difficulty in identifying it with any living species: in all probability it belongs to a new one. As there is nothing conclusive concerning this specimen, nor concerning several others which are alluded to, we refer for more ample details to the Wernerian Trans. vol. iii. and to the Geology of the Yorkshire Coast by Messrs. Young and Bird.

Fourteenth Genus—Delphi­norhyncus

The distinguishing characters of this genus are, a prolonged snout, with a thin and long beak, which is not separated from the forehead by a furrow. The form of the jaws is straight, and they are both supplied with numerous and sharp teeth. The dorsal fin is single.

M. Blainville introduced this generic distinction, and proposed its designation. The Cuviers, Desmaret, Lesson, and many others have adopted it. The difference is not great, yet it may be found useful in correct classification.

The only representation of this genus we supply is the

Fifteenth Genus—Soosoo

The beak is long, slender, compressed at the sides, and expanded at the extremity, so that it is larger at this part than in the middle; it is also somewhat curved at its termination.

The Soosoo of M. de Borda

Soosoo Bordaii (Fossile), Cuv.

This species was discovered by the late M. de Borda at Sort, a village about six miles from Dax, in beds of a species of falun, which are rich in all sorts of shells and other products of the sea. Very considerable fragments of the jaws were procured and sent to Paris, where at first they were considered as belonging to the crocodile of the Ganges. Cuvier, however, speedily demonstrated that this could not be the case, and that they must have belonged to a cetaceous animal. According to him, its head must have been two feet long, and its whole extent about nine feet. From the lower jaw, he inferred it must have been either a dolphin, in the extended signification of that term, or a cachalot; and from the fragments under inspection, it was most likely to be the latter, as none of the dolphins had the lower jaw so formed, except the Gangeticus. An examination, however, of the upper jaw speedily settled this point, in as much as it had teeth, which the cachalot has not. Cuvier concludes, that it is certain that this Ceté does not belong to any of the species, the osteology of which is known The Gaugeticus has the symphysis of the lower jaw extremely compressed, whilst that of this fossile is broader than it is high. The teeth also are quite of another form. Neither the level above the sea, nor . the relation of the specimen to the neighbouring country, are recorded in the sources whence we have extracted this truly interesting notice.

Sixteenth Genus—Inia

The Inia has the beak long like that of the Dolphin, but cylindrical, and bristled with strong hairs; it has many teeth, incisors anteriorly, molars posteriorly. The temporal fossa and crest are also peculiar.

Seventeenth Genus—Oxypterus

With two dorsal fins.

M. Refinesque Smaltz, a naturalist established in Sicily, proposed this name for a dolphin with two dorsal fins, which he affirmed he had seen in the Mediterranean. The evidence he gave of its existence was unsatisfactory, and had not Messrs. Quoy and Gaimard, in their voyage, met with another example of this very singular genus, it would probably have been passed by in this place. This was the

Rhinoceros Whale

Oxypterus Rhinoceros, Lesson.—Delpliinus Rhinoceros, Quoy and Gaimard.

As no individual of this species was captured, we cannot present any plate which could be depended upon; we copy, however, from the atlas of Quoy and Gaimard, a cut which will assist the imagination and rivet the peculiarity on the memory.

We shall quote the words of these eminent voyagers.

In October 1809, in going from the Sandwich Islands to New South Wales, many Dolphins, in troops, were performing their rapid evolutions about our vessel. Every one on board was surprised to perceive that they had a fin on their head bent backwards, the same as that on their backs. The size of this animal was about double that of the common Porpoise; and the upper part of its body to the dorsal fin was spotted black and white.

We did our best to examine them, all the time they accompanied us; but although they often passed the prow of the vessel, with the highest part of their back out of the water, yet their heads were so submerged, that neither M. Arago nor we could discover whether their snout was long or short; and their habits could not assist us on this point, because they never sprang above the wave, as is common with other species. From their very singular conformation, we have assigned them their name—Rhinoceros.