observed on the coasts of Cornwall. 125 



celcbiated Baron Cuvier, to write his well-kuown and excellent 

 work on these animals, in which, however, he has carried his 

 scepticism to a somewhat unwarrantable extent. This confusion 

 of species, with its attendant ignorance of habits, is in part owing 

 to the distance which the larger species keep from the haunts of 

 men, to their migratory habits, according to the seasons or the 

 distribution of their food, or to their mighty bulk and strength, 

 which prevent their becoming the prey of the fisherman, whose 

 efforts are only directed against such as, by the abundance of 

 oil they furnish, are likely to pay him for his expense and dan- 

 ger. A practical fisherman has rarely been a scientific naturalist ; 

 and therefore, if an individual of the rarer species has chanced to 

 fall m the way of those most likely to meet with it, it has not 

 been examined w ith such intelligent attention as is likely to add 

 to the amount of our knowledge. 



It is, again, only after long intervals that, most frequently 

 compelled by the violence of some disease, an individual of the 

 larger sort has become stranded on our shores ; and in cases like 

 this, it is to be regretted that the fact has not been known to a 

 competent observer until the animal has suffered such mutilation 

 as obliterates the particular characters of the species ; or perhaps 

 such fragments only are left for his inspection as serve to increase 

 rather than diminish the general amount of error regarding them. 

 Unfortunately for the cause of science, it has very rarely happened 

 that any one observer has had an opportunity of inspecting more 

 than a single specimen of the rarer species, and consequently of 

 comparing one individual with another, — a circumstance which, 

 perhaps more than any other, has led to the multiplication of 

 species in the catalogues of naturalists ; and under the more 

 ordinary circumstances, a great amount of uncertainty, both in 

 the description and drawing, will necessarily arise, from the 

 presence of a crowd of people which are sure to gather together 

 to the sight, and the awkward manner in which the enormous 

 bulk is likely to take the ground as the tide retires, at which 

 time only, for the most part, the whole of the body can be seen. 



These latter remarks are not only intended as an apology for 

 the imperfection of the notes I have brought together of such of 

 those animals as have been met with on our coasts, but also to 

 point out to fishermen and others how much it may be in their 

 power to assist the researches of the naturalist, which more 

 especially may be done by communicating to any competent 

 observer the occuiTence of a specimen that might not otherwise 

 be known to him, and by refraining from mutilating it until an 

 examination of it has been made, — a circumstance which may 

 prove highly to the advantage of the fisherman himself; since 

 the preservation and sale of an unknown or rare example may 



