THE WHITE WHALE 123 
headed whales, bunched whales; under-jawed whales and rostrated 
whales, are the fisherman’s names for a few sorts. 
In connection with this appellative of “Whalebone whales,” it is 
of great importance to mention, that however such a nomenclature may 
be convenient in facilitating allusions to some kinds of whales, yet it is 
in vain to attempt a clear classification of the leviathan, founded upon 
either his baleen, or hump, or fin, or teeth ; notwithstanding that those 
marked parts or features very obviously seem better adapted to afford 
the basis for a regular system of Cetology than any other detached 
bodily distinctions, which the whale, in his kinds, presents. How then ? 
The baleen, hump, back-fin, and teeth ; these are things whose peculiar- 
ities are indiscriminately dispersed among all sorts of whales, without 
any regard to what may be the nature of their structure in other and 
more essential particulars. Thus, the sperm whale and the hump- 
backed whale, each has a hump ; but there the similitude ceases. Then, 
this same humpbacked whale and the Greenland whale, each of these 
has baleen; but there again the similitude ceases. And it is just the 
same with the other parts above-mentioned. In various sorts of whales, 
they form such irregular combinations; or, in the case of any one of 
them detached, such an irregular isolation ; as utterly to defy all general 
methodisation formed upon such a basis. On this rock every one of the 
whale naturalists has split. 
But it may possibly be conceived that, in the internal parts of the 
whale, in his anatomy — there, at least, we shall be able to hit the right 
classification. Hay; what thing, for example, is there in the Green- 
land whale’s anatomy more striking than his baleen? Yet we have 
seen that by his baleen it is impossible correctly to classify the Green- 
land whale. And if you descend into the bowels of the various levia- 
thans, why, there you will not find distinctions of a fiftieth part as 
available to the systematiser as those external ones already enumerated. 
What then remains ? nothing but to take hold of the whales bodily, in 
their entire liberal volume, and boldly sort them that way. And this 
is the bibliograpical system here adopted ; and it is the only one that 
can possibly succeed, for it alone is practicable. To proceed. 
BOOK I. (Folio), Chapter IV. (Hump-Bach ) . — This whale is often 
seen on the northern American coast. He has been frequently captured 
