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CETOLOGY. 



Cetology, 



Marten'* 

 Spiszber- 



gen. 



Egede's 

 Greenland, 



Crantz' 

 Greenland. 



Pontoppi- 

 dan's Nor- 

 way. 



Frederic Martens, another German, published an 

 account of Spitzbergen and the neighbouring arctic 

 regions, which is frequently referred to by Pennant 

 and other zoological writers, particularly as contain- 

 ing the best account of the gibbar, or fin-fish, and 

 the butskopf, or beaked whale. 



About the middle of the eighteenth century, John 

 Egede, a Danish missionary, who had passed many 

 years in Greenland, successfully labouring for the 

 conversion of the natives, and who had acquired a 

 thorough acquaintance with the productions of the 

 country, and the manners of the inhabitants, publish- 

 ed his Description of Greenland, which was speedily- 

 translated into English, and published in 8vo, with 

 tolerable plates, in 1743. This work contains an ac- 

 count of the black or Greenland whale, thejin-jish, 

 and the narwhal, or unicorn Jish, which, though not 

 very particular, is more to be relied on than that of 

 his predecessors. 



The History of Greenland, in two volumes, pub- 

 lished in German by David Crantz, a missionary of 

 the United Brethren, in 1765, and translated into 

 English in 1767, gives the best account of the natu- 

 ral history of those frozen regions. This account is 

 confined chiefly to the first volume, which contains de- 

 scriptions of 13 species of cetaceous animals. Only two 

 of these, however, the ivhitejisli and the porpesse, are 

 described from the author's own observations ; the 

 account of the rest being copied from Marten's Spitz- 

 bergen, Anderson's Iceland, and similar works of esta- 

 blished reputation. 



In 1751, Erich Pontoppidan, bishop of Bergen, 

 published, in the Danish language, his Natural His- 

 tory of Norway, of which an English translation ap- 

 peared at London in 1755. The second part of this 

 work is devoted chiefly to zoology, and contains 

 many particulars respecting some of the cetacea, as 

 the hualjish, or great whale, the nebbe-hual, or beak- 

 ed whale, the narwal, or sea unicorn, and the mars~ 

 vin, or porpesse. His account of the great whale is 



very minute, and tolerably accurate, though, like Cetology. 

 most of the good bishop's relations, it sometimes sa- s T"" il1 '' 

 vours too much of the marvellous to be received with- 

 out limitations. His description of a bladder beneath 

 the back bone, by means of which the whale renders 

 himself more or less buoyant ; and his account of 

 the " terrible roar" sent forth by this animal when 

 bitten by the speckhuggeren, (gladiators,) or when 

 ready to burst from repletion after a full meal of her- 

 rings, are erroneous. His figures are worse than his 

 descriptions ; for by way of representing the Green- 

 land whale, he gives a bad figure of the cachalot, 

 and his figure of the narwhal has the body spiral- 

 ly twisted as well as the horn. 



Among the British Faunce, we may particularly 

 notice Dale's History of Harwich, Borlase's History 

 of Cornwall, with two works of our contemporaries, 

 Neill's Tour to the Orkney and Shetland Islands, and 

 Fleming's Natural History of the Zetland Islands. 

 The former of these two last works contains the dis- 

 tinguishing marks of a species or variety of the dol- 

 phin tribe, called by the Scottish islanders the ca'ing 

 "whale, and the latter notices the several species of ce- 

 taceous animals that have appeared on the shores of 

 Zetland. Mr Fleming has also given an excellent 

 account of a species of narwhal in the Memoirs of 

 the Wernerian Natural History Society of Edin- 

 burgh. 



In the account which we are here to give of ceta- 

 ceous animals, we shall first describe their general 

 structure and economy, and shall afterwards give a 

 comprehensive view of each tribe, and of the more 

 important species, distinguishing whatever is most 

 remarkable in what is called their natural history, in- 

 cluding their form, size, proportions, and colour ; 

 the particular situations where they are most generally- 

 found ; their manners and way of life ; the enemies 

 to which they are most frequently exposed ; and the 

 uses to which their spoils have been applied by their 

 most powerful enemy, man. 



PART L ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY OF CETACEOUS ANIMALS. 



IN their general form, these animals nearly resemble 

 External r ' c , , .., . * 



form &c. * e or dmary tribes or fishes, and like these, are ena- 

 bled, by their conformation, to move through the wa- 

 ter with great velocity. In most species the head is 

 conical, and more or less pointed at the snout ; though 

 the great spermaceti whale, and some others of the 

 physeter genus, are an exception to this general rule. 

 In most of them the head is extremely large, in pro- 

 portion to the body, and swells out at the sides to- 

 wards the insertion of the lower jaw. The head is 

 joined to the body by a neck, so short, as to be 

 scarcely perceptible. There is no appearance of ex- 

 ternal ear, but only a small orifice, leading to the in- 

 ternal organ of hearing. The eyes are, in general, 

 extremely small, in proportion to the size of the ani- 

 mal, and are commonly situated very far back, near 

 the articulation of the lower jaw. There is always 

 one hole, and in some species two holes, opening in 

 some part of the top of the head, and serving less for 

 nostrils than for ejecting the water taken in by the 

 animal's mouth. 



The body is more or less conical or cylindrical, en- 

 tirely without hair, and covered with a thick and dense 



e posterior or sacraZextremity, the body 

 forked tail, that is flattened horizontal- 



cuticle. At the 

 terminates in a : 

 ly, and is very strong and muscular. In some species 

 there is a fin, in others a protuberance, on the top of 

 the back, and all of them have two members, one on 

 each side of the chest, which are usually denominated 

 pectoral jins', but are better entitled to the name of 

 swimming paws, as they nearly resemble the atlantal 

 extremities, or fore- feet of seals and walrusses. These 

 animals have evident external organs of reproduction, 

 and in the males especially these are sometimes very 

 large and prominent. 



SECT. I. Motion. 



The motive organs of cetaceous animals have Skeleton, 

 many striking peculiarities. The skeleton has its 

 parts joined together in such a manner, and is so 

 deeply imbedded within the fat and muscles, that it 

 does not, as in quadrupeds, much influence or dis- 

 criminate the external form of the animal. The bones 

 have a very loose and coarse texture, so that the 

 fibres are readily distinguished, even on a superficial 



