3 /4 JWr. Hunter’s Obfervations on the 
part, the animals having been too long kept before I procured 
them, to admit of more than a very fuperficial infpefilion. 
From thefe circumftances it will be readily fuppofed, that an 
accurate defcription of all the different fpecies is not to be ex- 
pected ; but having acquired a general knowledge of the whole 
tribe, from the different fpecies which have come under my 
examination, I have been enabled to form a tolerable idea, even 
of parts which I have only had the opportunity of feeing in a 
very curlory way. 
General obfervation would lead us to believe, that the whole of 
this tribe conffitutes one order of animals, which Naturalifts 
have fubdivided into genera and fpecies ; but a deficiency in the 
knowledge of their oeconomy has prevented them from making 
thele divifions with fufficient accuracy; and this is not lur- 
prifing, fince the genera and fpecies are ff ill in fome meafure 
undetermined even in animals with which we are better 
acquainted. 
The animals of this order are in fize the largeff known, and 
probably, therefore, the feweft in number of all that live in 
water. Size, I believe, in thofe animals who feed upon others, 
is in an inverfe proportion to the number of the fmaller ; but, I 
believe, this tribe varies more in that refpedl than any we know, 
viewing it from the Whalebone Whale, which is feventy or 
eighty feet long, to the Porpoife that is five or fix : however, 
if they differ as much among themfelves as the Salmon does 
from the Sprat, there is not that comparative difference in fize 
that would at firft appear. The Whalebone Whale is, I be- 
lieve, the largelf ; the Spermaceti Whale the next in fize (the 
one which 1 examined, although not full grown, was about 
fixty feet long) ; the Grampus, which is an extenfive genus, is 
probably 
