the ordinary manner, and pay no great attention to cooks or doctors.

I cannot conclude this chapter without putting a question to the learned, which, I confess, I am not able to resolve. How comes it that fish, which are bred in a salt element, have yet no salt to the taste, or that is capable of being extracted from them?

CHAPTER II.

OF CETACEOUS FISHES IN GENERAL.

As on land there are some orders of animals that seem formed to command the rest, with greater powers and more various instincts, so in the ocean there are fishes which seem formed upon a nobler plan than others, and that, to their fishy form, join the appetites and the conformation of quadrupeds. These are all of the cetaceous kind; and so much raised above their fellows of the deep, in their appetites and instincts, that almost all our modern naturalists have fairly excluded them from the finny tribes, and will have them called, not fishes, but great beasts of the ocean. With them, it would be as improper to say men go to Greenland fishing for whale, as it would be to say that a sportsman goes to Blackwall a-fowling for mackerel.

Yet, notwithstanding philosophers, mankind will always have their own way of talking; and, for my own part, I think them here in the right. A different ⚫formation of the lungs, stomach, and intestines, a different manner of breathing or propagating, are not sufficient to counterbalance the great obvious analogy which these animals bear to the whole finny tribe. They are shaped as other fishes; they swim with fins;

they are entirely naked, without hair; they live in the water, though they come up to breathe; they are only seen in the depths of the ocean, and never come upon shore but when forced thither. These sure are sufficient to plead in favour of the general denomination, and acquit mankind of error in ranking them with their lower companions of the deep.

But still they are as many degrees raised above other fishes in their nature, as they are in general in their size. This tribe is composed of the Whale and its varities, of the Cachalot, the Dolphin, the Grampus, and the Porpoise. All these resemble quadrupeds in their internal structure, and in some of their appetites and affections. Like quadrupeds, they have lungs, a midriff, a stomach, intestines, liver, spleen, bladder, and parts of generation: their heart also resembles that of quadrupeds, with its partitions closed up as in them, and driving red and warm blood in circulation through the body. In short, every internal part bears a most striking similitude; and to keep these parts warm, the whole kind are also covered between the skin and the muscles with a thick coat of fat or blubber, which, like the baconfat of a hog, keeps out the cold, renders their muscles glib and pliant, and probably makes them lighter in swimming.

As these animals breathe the air, it is obvious that they cannot bear to be any long time under water. They are constrained, therefore, every two or three minutes to come up to the surface to take breath, as well as to spout out through their nostril, for they have but one, that water which they sucked in while gaping for their prey. This conduit, by which they breathe, and also throw out the water, is placed in the head, a little before the brain. Though externally the hole is but single, it is internally divided by a bony partition, which is closed by a sphincter mus

cle on the inside, that, like the mouth of a purse, shuts it up at the pleasure of the animal. There is also another muscle or valve, which prevents the water from going down the gullet. When therefore the animal takes in a certain quantity of water, which is necessary to be discharged and separated from its food, it shuts the mouth, closes the valve of the stomach, opens the sphincter that kept the nostril closed, and then breathing strongly from the lungs, pushes the water out by the effort, as we see it rise by the pressure of air in a fire-engine.

The senses of these animals seem also superior to those of other fishes. The eyes of other fishes, we have observed, are covered only with that transparent skin that covers the rest of the head; but in all the cetaceous kinds it is covered by eye-lids, as in This, no doubt, keeps that organ in a more perfect state, by giving it intervals of relaxation, in which all vision is suspended. The other fishes, that are for ever staring, must see, if for no other reason, more feebly, as their organs of sight are always exerted.

man.

As for hearing, these also are furnished with the internal.instruments of the ear, although the external orifice no where appears. It is most probable that this orifice may open by some canal, resembling the Eustachian tube, into the mouth; but this has not as yet been discovered.

Yet nature sure has not thus formed a complete apparatus for hearing, and denied the animal the use of it when formed. It is most likely that all animals of the cetaceous kind can hear, as they certainly utter sounds, and bellow to each other. This vocal power would be as needless to animals naturally deaf, as glasses to a man that was blind.

But it is in the circumstances in which they continue their kind, that these animals show an eminent

VOL. IV.-K

superiority. Other fish deposit their spawn, and leave the success to accident; these never produce above one young, or two at the most; and this the female suckles entirely in the manner of quadrupeds, her breasts being placed, as in the human kind, above the navel. We have read many fabulous accounts of the nursing of the demi-gods of antiquity, of their feeding on the marrow of lions, and their being suckled by wolves; one might imagine a still more heroic system of nutrition, if we supposed that the young hero was suckled and grew strong upon the breastmilk of a she-whale!

The whale or the grampus are terrible at any time, but are fierce and desperate in the defence of their young. In Waller's beautiful poem of the Summer Islands, we have a story, founded upon fact, which shows the maternal tenderness of these animals for their offspring. A whale and her cub had got into an arm of the sea, where, by the desertion of the tide, they were enclosed on every side. The people from shore soon saw their situation, and drove down upon them in boats, with such weapons as the urgent occasion offered. The two animals were soon wounded in several places, and the whole sea round was tinctured with their blood. The whales made several attempts to escape; and at last the old one, by its superior strength, forced over the shallow into the depths of the ocean. But though in safety herself, she could not bear the danger that awaited her young one; she therefore rushed in once more where the smaller animal was imprisoned, and resolved, when she could not protect, at least to share its danger. The story ends with poetical justice; for the tide coming in, brought off both in safety from their enemies, though not without sustaining an infinite number of wounds in every part.

As to the rest, the distinctive marks of this tribe