390 Is the Whale a Fish, and are the [April, 



The cavity of the thorax is composed of nearly the same parts as in 

 the quadruped. 



In all the WJmles which Mr. Hunter examined, there were several 

 stomachs. In the Porpoise, Grampus, and Piked Whale, Jive. 



" Although," says Mr. Hunter, " this tribe cannot be said to rumi- 

 nate, yet, in the number of their stomachs, they come nearest to that 

 order." 



With respect to the kidney of the WTiale, Mr. Hunter makes a very 

 remarkable observation. After pointing out its peculiar structure, and 

 suggesting that it seems to be necessary for an animal of the mammalia 

 class inhabiting the water, the same being found in the Manatee Seal, 

 and White Bear; he adds, that among land mammalia, it is found in the 

 Black Bear ; " which," says he, " I believe, never inhabits the water :" 

 and then further adds, " This, perhaps, should be considered in another 

 light, as Nature keeping up, to a certain degree, its uniformity in the struc- 

 ture of similar animals ; for, the Black Bear, in construction of parts, is, 

 in every other respect, as well as this, like the White Bear." 



The suggestion, in the mean time, that the land Bear has a similar 

 structure of kidney with the ivater Bear, merely because " Nature keeps 

 up to a certain degree of uniformity in the structure of similar animals," 

 is surely unphilosophical, or inconsistent with just ideas of the principles 

 of the operations of Nature ? Passing over the fact here discovered, that 

 the structure of kidney, almost exclusively found in the aquatic mam- 

 malia, and, after them, in the White Bear, an occasional frequenter of 

 the water, is not incompatible with the physiology of the Black Bear ; 

 nor, it may be presumed, -nith that of the great Grisley Bear — a fre- 

 quenter (by the way) of rivers ; and supposing that aquatic habits are 

 really the object provided for by this structure of kidney (or, if the sug- 

 gestion may be allowed, possibly the producing cause of that construc- 

 tion), is the inquiry next admissible, whether or not the land Bears, 

 carrying with them this mark of water origin, derive their species from 

 the ivater species ; and whether the phenomenon affords any support to 

 the theory of those who would bring the tjqpes of the whole organic 

 world from the ocean ? If the structure of kidney is essential to aquatic 

 habits specifically, we ought to find it in the Beaver, Water Rat, &c. 

 The several species of land Bears, in this view, would present them- 

 selves as varieties and degenerate species of a tvafer animal ; in the same 

 manner that we have mountain animals upon the plains, and northern 

 animals in the south. The reader, at the worst, will forgive the sugges- 

 tion of this new subject of inquiry ! 



The ear and eye of the Whale are said by Mr. Hunter to bear a general 

 resemblance to those of the land mammalia ; and the same is affirmed of 

 the nerves going off from the brain, except that the olfactory nerves 

 are wanting to the Porpoise genus. And thus much for, at least, a part 

 of tlie data upon which we are to pronounce, that, as to natural history, 

 the Whale is not ajish. 



AJish, then, is a cold and tvhite blooded, and oviparous animal, living 

 wholly in the water ; and a Wliale is a ieasi having ivarm and red blood, 

 bringing forth its young alive, and suckling them ; and, though living 

 and swimming in the water, and without the use of feet, yet very much 

 dependant upon the atmospheric air for its existence. It has eyes 

 which, according to Martens, are not much bigger than those of a bul- 

 lock, with eyelids and hair like human eyes. " The crystalline humour," 



