BOOK I. (_Folio_), CHAPTER III. (_Fin-Back_).—Under this head I reckon

a monster which, by the various names of Fin-Back, Tall-Spout, and

Long-John, has been seen almost in every sea and is commonly the whale

whose distant jet is so often descried by passengers crossing the

Atlantic, in the New York packet-tracks. In the length he attains, and

in his baleen, the Fin-back resembles the right whale, but is of a less

portly girth, and a lighter colour, approaching to olive. His great

lips present a cable-like aspect, formed by the intertwisting, slanting

folds of large wrinkles. His grand distinguishing feature, the fin,

from which he derives his name, is often a conspicuous object. This fin

is some three or four feet long, growing vertically from the hinder

part of the back, of an angular shape, and with a very sharp pointed

end. Even if not the slightest other part of the creature be visible,

this isolated fin will, at times, be seen plainly projecting from the

surface. When the sea is moderately calm, and slightly marked with

spherical ripples, and this gnomon-like fin stands up and casts shadows

upon the wrinkled surface, it may well be supposed that the watery

circle surrounding it somewhat resembles a dial, with its style and

wavy hour-lines graved on it. On that Ahaz-dial the shadow often goes

back. The Fin-Back is not gregarious. He seems a whale-hater, as some

men are man-haters. Very shy; always going solitary; unexpectedly

rising to the surface in the remotest and most sullen waters; his

straight and single lofty jet rising like a tall misanthropic spear

upon a barren plain; gifted with such wondrous power and velocity in

swimming, as to defy all present pursuit from man; this leviathan seems

the banished and unconquerable Cain of his race, bearing for his mark

that style upon his back. From having the baleen in his mouth, the

Fin-Back is sometimes included with the right whale, among a theoretic

species denominated _Whalebone whales_, that is, whales with baleen. Of

these so called Whalebone whales, there would seem to be several

varieties, most of which, however, are little known. Broad-nosed whales

and beaked whales; pike-headed whales; bunched whales; under-jawed

whales and rostrated whales, are the 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

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. 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 methodization 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 systematizer 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.