IS THE WHALE A FISH? 125 



plained that the reason they were mammals was because 

 they could not breathe under water. 



With regard to both men and monkeys belonging to the order 

 of mammals, Captain Fish and Mr. Sampson, the cross-ex- 

 aminer, exchanged innuendoes of a distinctly personal nature; 

 and Captain Fish, upon being reminded later that flounders, as 

 well as whales, had flat tails, acrimoniously retorted that if 

 flounders, which swam on their sides, were to swim instead on 

 their edges, their tails would be like the tails of any other fish. 

 Captain Fish's patience appears to have been nearly exhausted; 

 he remarked during his final appearance on the witness stand, 

 that he was "not interested in as much as a gallon of oil, 

 further than for burning in his own family, nor did he expect 

 to be." 



The examination of Doctor Mitchell ranged from the kraken 

 to the oyster and from the lobster to the flea. The unlucky 

 scholar, directed by the questions of his cross-examiner, dis- 

 cussed at length the characteristics of fishes and of whales, 

 outlined the literature of cetaceans from Genesis to the "modern 

 school" of French naturalists, propounded nice distinctions 

 between words in Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldean, Greek, and Latin, 

 and, with a parting fling at his questioners, retired from the 

 court. But alas! he was not yet done with his tormentors. 



"The whale is elevated to the same class with man," Mr. 

 Anthon said in his address to the jury, toward the close of the 

 second day of the trial, "because he breathes the vital air 

 through lungs, and has, in common with man, the various 

 peculiarities which have been enumerated in the progress of 

 this trial. The monkey possessing them also, in a still more 

 eminent degree, is also classed with us; he is, in truth, in the 

 language of the naturalists, no more a brute than a whale is a 

 fish: he is, in short, in form and structure, a man. 



"We have a statute, which declares that every freeman shall 

 be entitled to a vote at our public elections; let us suppose, 

 then, that at some one of those arduous struggles, where every- 

 thing in the shape of man has been by the zeal of politicians 

 urged to the hustings, the learned Doctor had appeared, lead- 



