OF CETACEOUS FISHES. 



249 



can be said of their habits, their stations, or 

 method of propagation. 



Much, indeed, can be said of them if con- 

 sidered relatively to man ; and large books 

 have been written of the manner of taking 

 fish, or of dressing them. Apicius is noted 

 for first having taught mankind to suffocate 

 fish in Carthaginian pickle ; and Quin, for 

 giving a sauce to the Johndory : Mrs Glasse 

 is famous for her eel-pie, and Mr Tull for his 

 invention of spaying carp, to give it a finer 

 flavour. In this manner our cooks handle the 

 subject. On the other hand, our physicians 

 assure us that the flesh of fishes yields little 

 nourishment, and soon corrupts ; that it abounds 

 in a gross sort of oil and water, and hath but 

 a few volatile particles, which render it less 

 fit to be converted into the substance of our 

 bodies. They are cold and moist, and must 

 needs, say they, produce juices of the same 

 kind, and consequently are improper to 

 strengthen the body. In this diversity of 

 opinion, it is the wisest way to eat our fish 

 in the ordinary manner, and pay no great at- 

 tention to cooks or doctors. 



I cannot conclude this chapter without put- 

 ting a question to the learned, which I confess 

 I am not able to resolve. How comes it that 

 fish, which are bred in a salt element, have 

 yet no salt to the taste, or that is capable of 

 extracted from them. 1 



CHAP. II. 



OF CETACEOUS FISHES IN GENERAL,. 



As on land there are some orders of animals 

 that seem formed to command the rest, with 

 greater powers and more various instincts, so 

 in the ocean there are fishes which seem 

 formed upon a nobler plan than others, and 

 that, to their fishy form, join the appetites and 

 the conformation of quadrupeds. These are 

 all of the cetaceous kind ; and so much raised 

 above their fellows of the deep, in their appe- 



1 Though fishes live in a salt element they do not 

 subsist on it. All the water they take into their mouths 

 is again discharged through the gills, after retaining the 

 air contained in it for'the purposes of life. The medium 

 of water answers the precise purpose to fishes, that the 

 medium of air does to man and other land animals. In 

 inspiration, the element is received into the lungs or 

 gills, and in expiration is returned deprived of its purer 

 parts, which are retained for the purpose of animal econ- 

 omy. And whatever salt maybe taken into the stomachs 

 of fishes with their food, is decomposed and separated 

 into its component parts of acid and soda. The sailor 

 that feeds for twelve months together on salted meats, 

 has not his own flesh made salt; but a decomposition 

 taking place during the process of digestion, he becomes 

 corrupted and scorbutic by the excess of soda and mag- 



tites and instincts, that almost all our modern 

 naturalists have fairly excluded them from 

 the finny tribes, and will have them called, 

 not fishes, but great beasts of the ocean. With 

 them it would be as improper to say men go 

 to Greenland fishing for whale, as it would 

 he to say that a sportsman goes to Blackwall 

 a fowling for mackarel. 



Yet, notwithstanding philosophers , mankind 

 will always have their own way of talking ; 

 and, for my own part, I think them here in 

 the right. A different formation of the lungs, 

 stomach, and intestines ; a different manner 

 of breathing or propagating ; are not sufficient 

 to counterbalance the great-ebvious analogy 

 which these animals bear to the whole finny 

 tribe. They are shaped as other fishes ; they 

 swim with fins ; they are entirely naked, with- 

 out hair; they live in the water, though they 

 come up to breathe ; they are only seen in the 

 depths of the ocean, and never come upon 

 shore but when forced thither. These, sure, 

 are sufficient to plead in favour of the general 

 denomination, and acquit mankind of error 

 in ranking them with their lower companions 

 of the deep. 



But still they are many degrees raised above 

 other fishes in their nature, as they are in 

 general in their size. This tribe is composed 

 of the Whale and its varieties, of the Cachalot, 

 the Dolphin, the Grampus, and the Porpoise. 

 All these resemble quadrupeds in their inter- 

 nal structure, and in some of their appetites 

 and affections. Like quadrupeds, they have 

 lungs, a midriff, a stomach, intestines, liver, 

 spleen, bladder, and parts of generation ; their 

 heart also resembles that of quadrupeds, with 

 its partitions closed up as in them, and driving 

 red and warm blood in circulation through the 

 body. In short, every internal part bears a 

 most striking similitude ; and to keep these 

 parts warm, the whole kind are also covered, 

 between the skin and the muscles, with a 

 thick coat of fat or blubber, which, like the 

 bacon fat of a hog, keeps out the cold, renders 

 their muscles glib and pliant, and probably 

 makes them lighter in swimming. 



As these animals breathe the air, it is ob- 

 vious that they cannot bear to be any long 

 time under water. They are constrained, 

 therefore, every two or three minutes, to come 

 up to the surface to take breath, as well as 

 to spout out through their nostril (for they 

 have but one) that water which they sucked 

 in while gaping for their prey. This conduit 

 by which they breathe, and also throw out 

 the water, is placed in the head, a little before 

 the brain. Though externally the hole is but 

 single, it is internally divided by a bony par- 

 tition, which is closed by a sphincter muscle 

 on the inside, that, like the mouth of a purse, 

 shuts it up at the pleasure of the animal. 

 2 l 



