CETACEA. 193 



but more slender; very common in the same latitudes, but shunneel 

 by the fishermen on account of its extreme ferocity, and the paucity 

 of its blubber (a) ; to capture it is a difficult, and for small vessels a 

 dangerous undertaking, on account of the violence of its motions 

 when attacked. It is far from certain that it is not a Juharta, and 

 ignorantly described, vsrhose name has been corrupted. The 



BALiENOfTERA, with a Wrinkled belly, or the Rorquals.* 



Have the skin of the underpart of the throat and chest folded longitudi- 

 nally into plica, forming very deep wrinkles, and consequently suscepti- 

 ble of very great dilatation, the use of which in their economy is unknown. 

 It appears that the seas of Europe contain two species. 



Bal. hoops, L.; Juharte of the Biscayans; Lacep. I. f. 3. — IV. 



f. 1 and 2.— V. f. 1, and VIII. 1 and 2. (The Jubarta or Finner). 



Superior in length to the common whale, but has all the dangerous 



propensities which are attributed to the razor-back. 



Bal. musculus, Lin. ; Lacep. pi. vi. and vii. (The Rorqual of the 



Mediterranean). Which only differs from the Jubarta in some of 



the details of its proportions {b).'\- 



* Rorqual, whale with tubes, from its plicae. 



f The BalcBna rostrata of Hunter, of Fabricius and of Bonnaterre, or the Boops, 

 is very different from that of Pennant and of Pontoppidan, which is the Hy- 



PEROODON. 



The Balana gibbosa and the gibbosa B. or nodosa of Bonnaterre, should be better 

 determined; but they are only known through Dudley, Phil. Trans. 387, and we are 

 not sure they were precisely in their natural state. See Oss. Fos. loc. cit. 



E^° (rt) The RazorbacJc is considered by our sailors as a dangerous sort of whale 

 to attack, as, when struck with the harpoon, it is so swift in its flight, that it runs off 

 from tire ship at the rate of nearly four hundred and eighty fathoms an hour, so that 

 he very often breaks the line attached to the harpoon, or obliges the crew to cut the 

 line, lest the boat should be sunk. The quantity of oil which this whale yields is no 

 more than from ten to twelve tuns; the oil is, besides, of inferior quality. For these 

 reasons the Razorback is not pursued by the whale catchers, except by mistake, a 

 misfortune which is by no means of rare occurrence. The broad-nosed whale, B. 

 wMsmhis, the beaked whale, B. rostrata, the finner, B. boops, are only varieties of the 

 Razorback. — Eng. Ed. 



g^ (6) At this point, where the description of the mammalia terminates, it is 

 proper for us to notice the recent attempts which have been made in this country to 

 establish a new principle of classification amongst the mammalia. The most im- 

 portant, and, as some believe, the most profound of those arrangements, is that of 

 the learned entomologist, William M'Leay, esq., who, in his singular work, entitled 

 Hora; Entoviologica, presents us with its details. The bases of his system are; — 



1. That all natural groups, whether kingdoms or any subdivision of them, return 

 into themselves; a distribution which he expresses by circles. 



2. That each of these circles is formed precisely oi five groups, each of which is 

 resolvable into five other smaller groups, and so on. 



3. That proximate circles or larger groups are connected by the intervention of 

 lesser groups, which he denominates osculant. 



4. That there are relations of analogy between the corresponding points of conti- 

 guous circles. 



But the most interesting portion of Mr. Mac Leay's speculations on the mammalia 

 is that which discusses the analogies subsisting, according to him, between the prin- 

 cipal groups of mammalia, and tliose into which the class of birds is resolvable. We 

 give the statement of the author — 



' Every manmiiferous animal maybe reduced to these five orders; that is, may 



VOL. I. R 



