242 A HISTORY OF 



placed in the head, a little before the brain. Though externally Ihr 

 hole is but biugle, it is internally divided by a bony partition, which is 

 closed by a sphincter muscle on the inside, that, Pike the mouth of a 

 purse, shuts it up at the pleasure of the animal. There is also an- 

 other muscle or valve, which prevents the water from going down the 

 gullet. When, therefore, the animal takes in a certain quantity of 

 water, which is necessary to be discharged and separated from its 

 food, it shuts the mouth, closes the valve of the stomach, opens the 

 sphincter that kept the nostril closed, and then breathing strongly 

 from the lungs, pushes the water out by the effort, as we see it rise by 

 the pressure of air in a fire-engine. 



The senses of these animals seem also superior to those of other 

 fishes. The eyes of other fishes, we have observed, are covered onlj 

 with that transparent skin that covers the rest of the head ; but in all 

 the cetaceous kinds, it is covered by eyelids, as in man. This, no 

 doubt, keeps that organ in a more perfect state, by giving it intervals 

 of relaxation, in which all vision is suspended. The other fishes, thai 

 are for ever staring, must see, if for no other reason, more feebly, as 

 their organs of sight are always exerted. 



As for hearing, these also are furnished with the internal instru 

 ments of the ear, although the external orifice nowhere appears. Tt 

 is most probable that this orifice may open by some canal, resembling 

 the Eustachian tube, into the mouth ; but this has not as yet been 

 discovered. 



Yet Nature, sure, has not thus formed a complete apparatus for 

 hearing, and denied the animal the use of it when formed. It is 

 most likely that all animals of the cetaceous kind can hear, as they 

 certainly utter sounds, and bellow to each other. This vocal power 

 would be as needless to animals naturally deaf, as glasses to a man 

 that was blind. 



But it is in the circumstances in which they continue their kind, 

 that these animals show an eminent superiority. 'Other fish deposit 

 their spawn, and leave the success to accident: these never produce 

 above one young, or two at the most; and this the female suckles entiro- 

 iy in the manner of quadrupeds, her breasts being placed, as in the hu- 

 man kind, above the navel. We have read many fabulous accounts 

 of the nursing of the demigods of antiquity, of their feeding on the 

 marrow of lions, and their being suckled by wolves ; one might ima- 

 gine a still more heroic system of nutrition, if we supposed that the 

 young hero was suckled and grew strong upon the breast-rnilk of a 

 she-whale ! 



The whale or the grampus are terrible at any time ; but are fierce 

 and desperate in the defence of their young. In Waller's beautiful 

 poem of the Summer Islands, we have a story, founded upon fact, 

 which shows the maternal tenderness of these animals for their off- 

 spring. A whale and her cub had got into an arm of the sea, where, 

 by the desertion of the tide, they were enclosed on every side. The 

 people from shore soon saw their situation, and drove down upon 

 them in boats, with such weapons as the urgent occasion offered 

 The two animals were soon wounded in several places, and the whole- 

 sea round was tinctured with their blood. The whales made 

 several attempts to escape ; and at last the old one, by its superiol 



