CETACEANS. 149 



but rank with a higher grade of the animal kingdom, 

 they are, as it were by a penalty, compelled to respire 

 atmospheric air in its free state, and to conduct it to 

 their lungs through nostrils, or spiracles, provided them 

 for this purpose. 



They are, consequently, obliged to ascend to the 

 surface of the water for the purpose of respiration; 

 and it is curious to reflect, how greatly such necessity 

 tends to their destruction, by exposing them to the 

 attacks of their chief, and perhaps only enemy, man. 

 Without this high pulmonary organization, the visits 

 of whales to the surface of the sea would not be com- 

 pulsory, or indicated by the treacherous spout; nor 

 could human arts then, as now, avail for their destruc- 

 tion. This part of the economy of cetaceans, therefore, 

 accords well with many other provisions of a wise 

 Providence, by which the animal is indirectly applied 

 to the use of man, through an organization directly 

 essential to its own existence. 



By a peculiar modification of the air-passages, in 

 whales, the larynx, (or aperture of the wind-pipe,) in- 

 stead of opening behind the tongue, as in land mam- 

 mals, is continued to the spouting-canal, and deeply 

 inserted, and closely embraced, within its tube. Hence, 



the payment of duty upon whale-oil being resisted, on the ground that 

 the words of the law were confined to oils produced from fish, and as 

 whale was not fish, the oil from that animal, it was contended, did not 

 come within the letter of the law. To support the allegation, naturalists 

 of ability and professors of the university gave it in evidence that whales 

 were not fish; but the jury would not be convinced by the learned 

 distinctions of science, and gave a verdict according to what they con- 

 ceived to be the meaning, though it was not the letter, of the law. 



" The church of Rome regards coot as fish, and why should seal-oil 

 not be the produce of fish in a legal view, since whale is classed with 

 them ?" Note to Griffiths' Translation of Cuvier's Animal Kingdom. 



