13 A L JE N A. 



mulate fat. An we proceed in the gradation, too, 

 we find that the fat which they do accumulate, con- 

 tains proportionally more steariiie, and less oil. Nay, 

 if we continue the parallel a little farther, we find 

 that the larger toothed whales have a tendency to 

 accumulate hard fat as the camels do in their humps ; 

 and that both of these range the warmer latitudes. 



These circumstances show that the land and the 

 sea, different as they are in their characters and pro- 

 ductions, yet form parts of the one system of nature, 

 are acted upon by the same general agents, and, as 

 we may express it, subject to the same common laws. 

 Therefore, though the land influences the terrestrial 

 animal and the sea the marine one, we err if we state 

 absolutely that the one is a production of the land, 

 and the other a production of the sea. There is 

 enough to show that, however the sea or the land 

 may modify, or, to express it more accurately, how- 

 ever the animal may be modified, so as to fit it for the 

 one or the other, neither land nor sea could of itself 

 produce a single animal. As little can we say that 

 a single animal is self-produced; and yet as every 

 organisation is evolved by itself, and not by its parent, 

 See the article ASSIMILATION we find that we 

 search matter in vain for the cause of its production, 

 though we readily enough find the means of its being 

 of one form and in one place rather than another. 

 This holds in all the kingdoms of nature, animal, 

 vegetable and mineral ; for though the productions of 

 the last arc more simple, as having none of the cha- 

 racteristics of life, yet when we come to what may 

 be properly called a natural species of mineral, we can 

 no more find the production of that in the rest of 

 the minerals, than we can find the production of one 

 species of animal or plant in the rest of animals or 

 plants. Alchymists who laboured so long in attempt- 

 ing to obtain gold by the " transmutation" of other 

 metals, were as much in error as those naturalists 

 who supposed that a goose could be produced from 

 a bernacle shell, or an eel from the hair of a horse's 

 tail. Both the distinctions of species and the pro- 

 duction of species, are, therefore, without any material 

 cause which we can name or even know, they are both 

 known to us only as continuations of that which has 

 previously existed ; and we can.trace them to no other 

 source than a Creator. The necessity of this inference 

 meets us so constantly that we must either at once 

 admit it, or be contented with our knowledge of 

 nature as a mere disjointed fragment, originating we 

 know not whence, and continued we know not how. 

 As such it can have no moral value, and little value 

 of any kind, to raise it above the common class of 

 idle occupations. But when we confess our belief 

 in the Creatorship (for whether we confess it or not, 

 nothing but utter and brute ignorance can prevent 

 us from having it), the moral obligation follows by 

 necessary connexion ; and, in proportion as we ad- 

 vance in knowledge, it is very difficult, and must 

 require some habit or association in more than an 

 ordinary degree pernicious, to prevent us from in the 

 eame degree increasing in the desire of doing that 

 which is right. Plants and animals are thus our 

 instructors in rectitude of conduct, as well as in 

 merely speculative knowledge : and "when any of 

 them is preeminently calculated to engage our atten- 

 tion, as is the case with the whales, we may always 

 be sure that the lesson which they have to impart, is 

 fully in proportion to that enticement by which we 

 are drawn to the contemplation of it. 



We shall now, very briefly mention the species, 

 bearing in mind that the chief distinction of an ex- 

 ternal kind is, that the balifinoptcra have a dorsa 

 fin, and the balaena have none. The presence of the 

 dorsal fin indicates that those species which have it, 

 go deeper in the water in their ordinary habits, tluia 

 those which have it not; and this is accompanied by 

 othef characters, which also indicate differences of 

 habit. Whether these differences are generic or 

 only specific, is a question which must be decided by 

 the systematists. At all events, they are a well de- 

 fined group, being the only animals which capture 

 their food by means of baleen, or whalebone in the 

 mouth. 



BALAENA. The general characters of the genus 

 are : the head very large, elevated at the blow- 

 holes; the gape wide ; the plates of whalebone long; 

 and the two bones which form the under jaw curved 

 something in the form of ribs, and sometimes impro- 

 perly called by that name. In places where the 

 whale fishery is established, these may often be seen 

 as gate-posts. The body becomes taper and rounded 

 toward the tail, which is the only organ of motion, 

 and has its breadth in a horizontal direction, or the 

 opposite of the tails of fishes. The females have two 

 mammae, but no nipples ; and though the mammary 

 glands are more simple in their structure than those 

 of many land animals, the milk is as rich, and nearly 

 if not altogether as thick as cream. There are 

 usually reckoned four species, of which the most im- 

 portant are, the common whale and the Iceland whale. 

 They inhabit nearer the poles than any other of the 

 whales, and the common whales more so than the 

 others ; though they all meet in the same seas, and 

 sometimes the toothed whales are found there also. 



The COMMON WHALE, black whale, or Greenland 

 whale (Baltena mysticetus), being the species chiefly 

 alluded to in the introductory part of this article, may 

 be more briefly noticed here. Historically, it is the 

 largest of animals ; and though the reports with which 

 we sometimes meet of whales 900 or 1000 feet in 

 length are certainly exaggerations, it is equally cer- 

 tain that whales of much larger size, as well as in 

 much more abundant numbers, were formerly found 

 in the Greenland seas than are found there now. The 

 slow growth of these* animals, the limited portion of 

 the sea which appears to be properly adapted for 

 them, and the assiduity with which the whale fishery 

 has been for a long time carried on, may, in great 

 part, account for the diminution. Sixty feet in length 

 and about forty in circumference now form what is 

 considered as a full-sized whale ; and one of these 

 will, if properly cut up, furnish upwards of one hun- 

 dred tons of oil. There are tolerably well authen- 

 ticated accounts of individuals formerly taken, of 

 double these dimensions, and, consequently, as the 

 volumes of similar animals are the cubes of their lineal 

 dimensions, of eight times the bulk and weight. The 

 general section of the body is cylindrical, largest a 

 little behind the swimming paws, and becoming a 

 little smaller towards the head, the ,neck also marked 

 by some furrowing in the skin. For some general 

 remarks on the structure of the whale tribe, we must 

 refer to the article CETACEA ; but we may mention 

 that the neck has the same number of vertebrae as 

 the land mammalia as the camel or giraffe, for in- 

 stance, and that the articulation of the cervical ver- 

 tebras resembles that in the armadillos. That por- 

 tion of the tail which may be considered as the stalk 



