ORDER CETACEA. 493 



sand years, when we consider that a carp can live two 

 hundred. 



The Whale can inhabit every climate, but has been driven, 

 by the avidity and persecution of man, to the bleak retreats 

 of the Polar Regions. The species has been long dimi- 

 nishing, and there is every reason to believe that the period 

 is not very remote, when this gigantic remembrancer of 

 former worlds shall exist only in the memories and the 

 histories of men ; when its colossal remains shall attract 

 the admiration of another age, as those of the Mastodontes 

 and Megatheria, the Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri do of 

 ours. Change, diminution, decay, and dissolution of parts, 

 are perpetual in the universe, and nature is permanent only 

 as a whole. 



We have nothing to add of any interest to our author's 

 account of the Nord-Caper, or the Baljsnoptera ; nor shall 

 we trouble our readers in this place with an enumeration 

 of species that can yet scarcely be considered as sufficiently 

 authenticated. We shall therefore conclude this notice on 

 the Balsente as we did that of the Cachalots, by giving 

 the Baron's sentiments respecting the discrimination of 

 species. 



*' The Balaenae, in the modern acceptation of the word, 

 i. e., Cetacea with the palate furnished with whalebone, are 

 divided into three sub-genera: The Whales Proper which 

 have no dorsal fin, or fold under the throat ; the Fin Fish 

 or Gibbars which have a dorsal fin, but are without the 

 fold ; and the Rorquals, the throat of which is channelled 

 with folds or longitudinal furrows. This division we see 

 is based on very precise characters ; but the case is far 

 otherwise in the species reckoned in each of these sub- 

 genera. In fact we shall find that even the existence of the 

 second sub-genus is hardly sufficiently authenticated. 



" The most celebrated of the Whales Proper, is the Great 

 Whale of the Northern Seas, which formerly used to come 



