40 INTRODUCTION. 



tonish every one by the immensity of their di- 

 mensions, and their captui'e has for ages given 

 employment to unwearied efforts of activity and 

 courage; but except under favourable circumstaaces, 

 when occasionally sti*anded near some intelligent 

 naturalist, they have scarcely ever been described 

 with accuracy, and still less been minutely examined. 

 Thousands of mariners have captured and cut up 

 whales, who have never accurately examined one of 

 them ; and yet it is upon their vague descriptions and 

 figures that zoologists have endeavoured to establish 

 the natural history of these animals. The greater 

 number of authors, moreover, have never endea- 

 voured to exercise their critical powers in their 

 compilations, inasmuch as they had but few ascer- 

 tained facts as the basis of their reasonings. This is 

 the true cause why the history of the Cetacea is so 

 meagre, and yet so fall of contradiction and repeti- 

 tion. It would be truly an easy matter, by avaiHng 

 ourselves of the extraordinary figures which have 

 been depicted, but which are the mere creatures of 

 imagination and recollection, and also of the many 

 confiised and mutilated descriptions which have 

 been published, and by accumulating synonyms 

 which are mere copies of each other, to display long 

 lists of species, but they would have no real existence 

 in nature, and would altogether vanish before the 

 slightest breath of criticism." 



It may tend in some degree to illustrate the diffi- 

 culties which are here so ably noticed, and to demon- 

 strate their almost incredible extent, to state what 



