of the Greenland Whale, l3 



and of fishes have, probably, been rendered equally im- 

 moveable. 



The Greenland whale may, I think, be considered as typical 

 of the order cetacea, a tribe of creatures which, unlike fishes, 

 generally possess only two fins, with the exception of the tail ; 

 and, although some species possess a third fin, on their backs, 

 this latter possesses no bone in its composition ; so beautifully 

 is the analogy preserved between these animals and the rest 

 of the class mammalia to which they belong. When, indeed, 

 we examine the cetacea more critically, we find that these 

 instruments, which present the external appearance of breast 

 fins, by means of which they sustain their equilibrium, and 

 perform gentle motions, owe their present fin-like form simply 

 to the covering with which they are invested ; for, instead of 

 being composed of straight spines, like those of fishes, they 

 conceal bones and muscles, formed very like those of the fore 

 legs of land quadrupeds ; but their hand alone appears ex- 

 ternally, and we see it so enveloped in dense skin, that its 

 fingers have no separate motion. But, as the several bones 

 of the fingers are united together by means of intermediate 

 cartilages instead of capsular ligaments, the fins, or, more 

 strictly, the hands, possess great pliancy and strength, and 

 enable the whale kind to spread them upon their sides, and on 

 the breast; and, as Aristotle observed, in this way, to sustain 

 their young beneath them, closely compressed to their bodies. 



The fin, or hand of the common whale, is flat, and of much 

 greater proportionate size than in many other cetaceous ani- 

 mals, which extension of the organs of equilibrium appears 

 to have been required to compensate for the more unwieldy 

 construction of the body of the creature. Yet, from the struc- 

 ture of the true and finely organised hand of the ape tribe, 

 to the rude fin of the whale, we perceive no abrupt progres- 

 sion ; since the fore extremities of the amphibious mammalia 

 are precisely intermediate in their formation. 



These beautiful gradations in organization afford some of 

 the most interesting and apparent exhibitions of intention or 

 design, which are presented to our notice in surveying the 

 animal world ; we may trace the gradual conversion of the 

 hand or fore foot of- the terrestrial quadrupeds into the.fiu of 



