first: the uncertain, unsettled condition of this science of 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, linnæus 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 linnæus’s express edict, were still found dividing the possession of the same seas with the leviathan.