Broad-nosed whales and beaked whales; pike-headed whales;
bunched whales; under-jawed whales and rostrated whales,
are the fisherman's names for a few sorts.
In connexion 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 humpbacked 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.
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