8 SATURDAY LECTUliKS. 



our institutions" — a jury in a court of law. About sixty- 

 years ago, a case was brought up in tlio New York courts, 

 involving that question. It was a revenue case, and the 

 suitor was one Maurice Judd. It Avas decided with all 

 the formality of law that the whale was a fish ! Times and 

 ideas have changed since then, but not so much as to forbid 

 us to believe that essentially the same views are prevalent 

 at the present day, and I presume that the old verdict ex- 

 pressed the opinion of the majority of mankind at this 

 time. Indeed, it may seem presumptuous in me to differ 

 from such high authority as a court of law. 



But without further preface, I shall now invite your con- 

 sideration of the skeletons at my side, one of a porpoise, 

 which is simply a kind of a whale, and the other of a 

 swordfish, which is a true fish. I will contrast the differ- 

 ences between the two ; first, as they appear in the flesh, and 

 then those which become manifest on dissection. 



As to form : of course, superficially there is a great deal 

 of resemblance between a whale and an ordinary fish, and 

 it is this superficial resemblance which has impressed upon 

 the popular mind the idea that the wdiale is a fish. But, 

 even if we consider onl}^ this external form closely, we find 

 that material differences occur, and those differences are 

 the indications of very much greater dissimilarity of ana- 

 tomical structure. In the fish, the tail, you will see, is ver- 

 tical; in the cetaceans it is horizontal. 



In the skeleton of the fish, the tail is composed of many 

 bones diverging from the tail vertebrae, and forming a 

 framework for the vertical fin. The fish in its progress 

 through the water moves this fin to and fro, sideways. In 

 the skeleton of the cetacean, there are no bones in the tail, 

 but the vcrtebrrc taper backward, and have nothing com- 

 parable to the bones of the fish. The fin is represented 

 simply by a mass of fibrous tissue and muscles, and it is 

 inserted horizontally, so that the animal, in progressing, 

 propels its tail upward and downward. 



These are the indices of very important differences. The 

 whale's tail is not at all like the fish's tail. The latter is a 



