Cetology is in the very vestibule attested by the fact, that in some quarters it still remains a moot point whether a whale be a fish.

In his System of Nature, A.D. 1776, Linn�us declares, “I hereby separate the whales from the fish.” But of my own knowledge, I know that down to the year 1850, sharks and shad, alewives and herring, against Linn�us’s express edict, were still found dividing the possession of the same seas with the Leviathan.

The grounds upon which Linn�us would fain have banished the whales from the waters, he states as follows: “On account of their warm bilocular heart, their lungs, their movable eyelids, their hollow ears, penem intrantem feminam mammis lactantem,” and finally, “ex lege natur� jure meritoque.” I submitted all