4i OF CETACEOUS FISHES. 



jaw ; the dolphin, with teeth in both jaws ; the porpeiTtf; 

 and the grampi^s. Such are the marks by which the 

 different tribes of this divifion are diftinguifhed from 

 each other ; but the mofl ftriking and obvious chara£ler 

 by which they are at once difcriminated from all other 

 animals, is their immenfe lize. The teftimony of all an- 

 cient writers concurs in afcribing to them a bulk tar fur- 

 pafling the largeft animal known upon the globe. In thofe 

 books which 'Juha wrote to tlie fon of -^ugiijlus Cajar 

 concerning Arabia^ whales of fix hundred feet long, and 

 three broad, are faid to have entered a river of that coun- 

 try *. Pliny himfelf vouches the extraordinary fize of 

 two hundred and foi'ty feet in length, by eighteen in 

 breadth ; and Nearchus declares, that he faw on one of 

 the iflands oppollte to the mouth of the Euphrates, a 

 ■whale of an hundred and fifty cubits, call out upon the 

 ihore. Arrian f, Straho J, and Biodorus, mention na- 

 tions of favages bordering on the hidian Ocean, which 

 built their houfes of the bones of whales caft out by the 

 fea, ufing their jaws for door cafes ; and we find from 

 FrohiJJjer, that the fame method of architeclure was for- 

 merly praclifed by the inhabitants of Greenlo?id §. 



Many later writers give a fimilar account of the mag- 

 nitude of whales. Even within the arftic circle, thej 

 were formerly of a prodigious fize, when their capture 

 was lefs frequent, and the fifti were allowed to grow. 

 We knov*^, by the accounts of travellers, that within the 

 torrid zone, where they are unmolelled, they areftill feen 

 one hundred and fixty feet In length |I. Thofe at prefent 

 taken in ihcCreefilatidi^zs, feldom exceed eighty orninc- 



* Piiny lib. x:;xii. cap. I. f Liber viii. \ Liber xv. 



§ Vide Second voyage, p. l8, || Adamfon's voyagesj p, I74, 



