OF THE CETACEA. 73 



genera in detail. "We shall do the same ^vith regard 

 to the dispositions manifested by the various species, 

 which must he learnt in connexion with their in- 

 dividual history. We may here, however, notice 

 one point in which they seem all to agree, viz. 

 the reciprocal regard they manifest for each other. 

 This is common more or less to them all, whether 

 as it regards the mother and her young, or the 

 cub and its parents, or the several members of the 

 same family or shoal. This amiable trait in the 

 character of the whole order, is quaintly but beauti- 

 fully illustrated in the following lines of the old 

 poet. Waller, which bear intrinsic marks of being a 

 delineation from nature. In his Battle of the 

 Summer Islands, we are informed that two whales, 

 an old and young one, were embayed in the shal- 

 lows ; and the folloTsdng scenes were enacted. 



The bigger whale like some liigh earack lay, 

 Which wanteth sea-room vdth her foes to play : 

 This sees the cub, and does himself oppose 

 Betwixt his cumbered mother and her foes : 

 With desperate courage he receives her wounds. 

 And men and boats his active tail confounds ; 

 Their forces joined, the seas with billows fill, 

 And make a tempest, though the winds be still. 



Now would the men with half their hoped-for prey 

 Be well content ; and wish this cub away : 

 Their wish they have ; he (to direct his dam 

 Unto the gap through which they thither came) 

 Before her swims, and quits the hostile lake, 

 A prisoner there, but for his mother's sake : 

 She, by the rocks compell'd to stay behind 

 Is by the vastness of her bulk confined— 



