Class IV. FIN WHALE. 69 



the capture very dangerous, cause the fishers to 

 neglect it : but the natives of Greenland hold it 

 in great esteem, as it affords a quantity of flesh, 

 which to their palate is very agreeable. 



The lips are brown, and like a twisted rope : 

 the spout hole is as it were split in the top of its 

 head, through which it blows water with much 

 more violence, and to a greater height, than the 

 common whale. The fishers are not very fond 

 of seeing it, for on its appearance the others 

 retire out of those seas. 



Some writers conjecture this species to have 

 been the $v<ra.\os, and Physeter, or the blowing 

 whale of Oppian, JElian, and Pliny;* but since 

 those writers have not left the lest description 

 of it, it is impossible to judge which kind they 

 meant ; for in respect to the faculty of spouting 

 out water, or blowing, it is not peculiar to any 

 one species, but common to all the whale kind. 



* Oppian, Halieut. I. Lin. 368. JElian Hist. an. ix. c. 49. 

 Plin. lib. ix. c. 5. 



