MEMOIR OP JOHN HUNTER. 61 



ter somehow found opportunities of minutely exa- 

 mining the Porpoise, two Grampuses, a Bottle-nosed 

 Whale, and the Balfsna rostrata of Fabricius, The 

 large Whalebone Whale, the Spermaceti Whale, and 

 v the Narwhal, had also fallen under his inspection. 

 " Some of these," he remarks, " I have examined 

 with accuracy, whilst others I have only examined 

 in part. Having thus acquired a general knowledge 

 of the whale tribe, I have been enabled to form a 

 tolerable idea of the whole ;" and a popular epitome 

 he embodies in the subsequent parts of the communi- 

 cation. He comments on their being mammalia, 

 and yet aquatic animals, on the mode in which 

 their internal structure is modiGed to suit their exter- 

 nal exigencies, on their shape, general figure, arid ap- 

 pearance. He then gives a distinct description of 

 their osseous structure, the tail, the fat, including a 

 long disquisition on spermaceti, of the skin, their 

 mode of collecting food, their teeth and whalebone, 

 the account of which is excellent ; then the whole of 

 their viscera, the windpipe and blowholes, forming 

 the best account we have seen ; the brain and the 

 several organs of sense. The paper is accompanied 

 with illustrative drawings, and as for many years it 

 was the best description, so is it much prized even 

 at the present day. 



About this time honours were showered thick 

 upon Mr Hunter. He was elected Fellow of the 

 Royal Society of Science at Gottenburgh, and of 

 the American Philosophical Society, and also of both 



