  Last and greatest of the mammalia are the whales. The adventures of hardy seamen, like Scoresby, in the pursuit of the Greenland whale, or Beale in the more dangerous chase of the spermaceti, in southern waters, form the subjects of more than one readable volume. But here we give no such extracts, but content ourselves with four short skits, having the cetacea for their subject. In these days of zoological gardens, they have succeeded in bringing one of the smallest of the order, a porpoise, to the Zoological Gardens. His speedy dissolution showed that even the bath of a hippopotamus or an elephant was too limited for the dwelling of this pre-eminently marine creature. But he had begun to show an intelligence, they say, which, independently of all zoological and anatomical considerations, showed that he had nothing in common with a fish, but a somewhat similar form, and an equal necessity for abundance of the pure liquid element. Whalebone.A thin old man, with a rag-bag in his hand, was picking up a number of small pieces of whalebone, which lay on the street. The deposit was of such a singular nature, that we asked the quaint-looking gatherer how he supposed they came there? "Don't know," he replied, in a squeaking voice; "but I s'pect some unfortunate female was wrecked hereabout somewhere." A Scotch lady, who was discomposed by the introduction of gas, asked with much earnestness, "What's to become o' the puir whales?' deeming their interests materially affected by this superseding of their oil." Very like a Whale.The first of all the royal infant males Christopher North on the Whale.Tickler. What fish, James, would you incline to be, if put into scales? Shepherd. A dolphin: for they hae the speed o' lichtnin. They'll dart past and roun' about a ship in full sail before the wind, just as if she was at anchor. Then the dolphin is a fish o' peace,—he saved the life o' a poet of auld, Arion, wi' his harp,—and oh! they say the cretur's beautifu' in death. Byron, ye ken, comparin' his hues to those o' the sun settin' ahint the Grecian isles. I sud like to be a dolphin. Shepherd. Let me see—I sud hae nae great objections to be a whale in the Polar Seas. Gran' fun to fling a boatfu' o' harpooners into the air—or, wi' ae thud o' your tail, to drive in the stern posts o' a Greenlandman. Tickler. Grander fun still, James, to feel the inextricable harpoon in your blubber, and to go snoving away beneath an ice-floe with four miles of line connecting you with your distant enemies. Shepherd. But, then, whales marry but ae wife, and are passionately attached to their offspring. There they and I are congenial speerits. Nae fish that swims enjoys so large a share of domestic happiness. Tickler. A whale, James, is not a fish. Shepherd. Isna he? Let him alane for that. He's ca'd a fish in the Bible, and that's better authority than Buffon. Oh that I were a whale! With these sentences, we conclude this book, as well as our selections on the whale. In the Museum at Edinburgh may be seen one of the finest, if not the most perfect, skeleton of a whale exhibited in this kingdom. Our young readers there can soon see, by examining it from the gallery, that the whale is no "fish." |
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