THE ORDER CETACEA. 



Among the earlier naturalists of modern times, many 

 have treated more or less minutely of cetaceous animals ; 

 as Aldrovandi, in that part of his general work entitled 

 Ceta ; Gesner, in his work, « De Piscibus ;" Johnston, 

 in his " Historia Naturalis de Piscibus et Cetis ;" and 

 Rondelet, in his " Histoire des Poissons." Of these, 

 the most respectable is Rondelet, whose work is not un- 

 frequently quoted with approbation : he, however, does 

 not add much to our stock of information respecting 

 the number of species, although he mentions some, and 

 particularly the B. gibbar, which were unknown to the 

 older naturalists. The work of Aldrovandi is, perhaps, 

 the most imperfect and inaccurate of the four : he quotes 

 largely, and apparently with implicit reliance, from the 

 writings of Aristotle and Pliny, and even from the fic- 

 tions of the poets. 



Among the naturalists of the seventeenth century, I 

 may mention three of our countrymen, of distinguished 

 eminence in most branches of the science, — Willoughby, 

 Ray, and Sibbald. Mr. Willoughby's work, " De His- 

 toric Piscium," edited by his friend Ray, contains many 

 valuable remarks on the cetaceous animals, more par- 

 ticularly the great whale, the dolphin, the porpoise, and 

 the grampus. This learned writer appears to be the 

 first who marked distinctly the similarity of anatomical 

 structure in whales and quadrupeds. 



Mr. Ray, in his " Synopsis Piscium," follows his 

 predecessors in zoology in the error of including the 

 cetacea among fishes, although he seems to be among 

 the first who doubted the propriety of such a classifi- 

 cation. The number of species enumerated by Ray 

 is considerable, and includes almost all that have 

 at different times been thrown upon the coasts of our 

 islands. 



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