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CHAPTER II. 



Order VIII. Cete; Cetaceous Animals. 



Cetaceous animals in general appearance and in 

 mode of living, bear a considerable resemblance 

 to fish, with which they are popularly confounded; 

 but by all the details of their conformation, their man- 

 ner of respiration and the nourishment of their off- 

 spring, they are entitled to rank in the first class of 

 animals, although at the inferior extremity of the 

 scale. 



In these creatures the head is joined to the trunk 

 by so short and thick a neck, as to appear continuous 

 with the body, and this large neck is in the greater 

 number capable of very little, if any motion, owing 

 to the consolidation of several of the slender cervi- 

 cal vertebrae. The trunk of the body gradually de- 

 creases until it terminates in a thick tail, which 

 ends in a horizontal cartilaginous fin, and when 

 used by the animal in effecting its forward motion, 

 is moved up and down, never laterally. 



The anterior extremities or arms, although in all 

 respects analogous to those of the higher orders of 

 animals, have the bones shortened, flattened and en- 



