 fishermen'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 kind 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 peculiarities 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 Hump-backed
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. Nay: what thing, for example, is there in the Greenland whale's
anatomy more striking than his baleen? Yet we have seen that by his baleen it is
impossible correctly to classify the Greenland whale. And if you descend into
the bowels of the various leviathans, why there you will not find distinctions 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
Bibliographical 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-back). - This whale is often seen on the
northern American coast. He has been frequently captured there, and towed into
harbour. He has a great pack on him like a peddler; or you might call him the
Elephant
