THE ORDER CETACEA. 15 



whale, a skeleton of which was in 1831 and 1832 ex- 

 hibited on the site of the late King's Mews, at Charing- 

 cross, measured ninety-five feet in length : this mag- 

 nitude is, however, but seldom attained, on account of 

 their frequent destruction by man and their oceanic 

 enemies. 



Captain Scoresby is of opinion that the common 

 Greenland whales are to be met with at the present day 

 as large as at any period since the commencement of 

 their destruction on account of the commercial value of 

 their oil. When fully grown, they may be considered 

 as averaging in their measurement from forty-five to 

 sixty-five feet, and from that to seventy feet ; and, in 

 their circumference, from thirty to forty feet.* 



SPECIES I. 



THE BAL.L'NA MYSTICE'TUS, OR BLACK COMMON 

 GREENLAND WHALE. 



The ancient historians, and, in particular, the Scripture 

 zoologists, have universally considered this animal as the 

 " leviathan of the deep." It is so mentioned in the sacred 

 volume ; and in the same view many of the poets have 

 described it, particularly Milton, who thus observes : — 



" Here leviathan, 

 Hugestof living creatures on the deep, 

 Stretched like a promontory, sleeps or swims, 

 And seems a moving land, and at his gills t 

 Draws in, and at his trunk spouts out, a sea." 



* " Edinburgh Philosophical Journal," No. i. p. 83. 

 t Had our immortal poet possessed the least acquaintance with the 

 natural history of this animal, he would have discovered that the whale 



