472 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



laenae, we shall observe a different arrangement. For the 

 sake of precision, we shall use the general term Cachalot 

 in speaking of the others, but at the same time we beg to 

 be understood as not using it in opposition to our author, 

 but merely to avoid disagreeable circumlocution. 



The histories transmitted to us of the Cachalots by earlier 

 navigators, like their histories of the Balaenae, abound in 

 absurdity and fable. Such is the necessary result of the 

 first sentiments of terror and affright which some of the 

 species would naturally inspire, or the consequence of that 

 heated imagination which leads some enthusiasts to see 

 nothing in nature but miracles and monsters. 



Such recitals, however, excited the attention of men of 

 science, and stimulated them to carry, if possible, the light 

 of truth into a region of natural history long darkened by 

 ignorance and falsehood. Green, Aldrovandus, Willoughby, 

 Rondelet, Artedi,Ray, Sibbald, Linnaeus, Brisson, Marten, 

 and a crowd of other distinguished naturalists, occupied 

 themselves with the history of these animals. Some, how- 

 ever, treated but of isolated species, and others too heed- 

 lessly admitted the reports of lying travellers; uncertainty, 

 confusion, error, imperfection, and fable, still too generally 

 prevailed. 



The illustrious Count Lacepede, one of the brightest 

 ornaments of science and of his country, and whose loss 

 she and Europe have had so lately to deplore, was the first 

 who introduced order into this department of Zoology. His 

 work on the Cetacea, though from uncontrollable causes, 

 not everything that can be desired, is yet by far the most 

 perfect of anything yet offered to the world on the subject, 



Some of the Cachalots, as we have seen, delight in such 

 regions as the Northen Atlantic, the coasts of Groenland, 

 the inhospitable shores of Spitzbergen. Some species, how- 

 ever, approach less elevated latitudes, while others again 

 are found only in the happy climates of the temperate 



