CETACEA, an order of Aquatic Mammals with fin-like anterior extremities, the posterior extremities being absent, or rather, having their place supplied by a large horizontal caudal fin or tail; without an external ear, without hair on their external integument, and the cervical bones so compressed as to leave the animal without any outward appearance of a neck. This order comprises the Whales, the largest animated forms in existence. Some of the genera com posing it are phytophagous, or plant-eaters; others are zoophagous, or animal-eaters.
The Cetaceous Mammals, whose abode is either in the sea or the great rivers, resemble Fishes so closely in external appearance, that it is hardly to be wondered at that not only the vulgar, but even some of the earlier zoologists, looked upon them as belonging to that class. This notion is kept alive to the present day in the announce ments of the comparative success of those ships which are employed in the Whale Fishery; for not only is it conveyed by that general term for the capture of whales, but by statements that one ship has arrived with three fish, another with four fish, a third with one fish, &c.
If we turn to the Sacred Scriptures we find the Hebrew words Than and Thannin, which have been translated by the words Kifros (the word used by "Eneas Gazieus to designate the fish out of whose belly Hercules is said to have escaped after having been swallowed) and ' Lyeophron terms the marine animal that so disposed of Hercules when he was shipwrecked, ucfpxapos ?cows, a shark.
The Septuagint translates the Hebrew words above noticed, .ra !tiro ra IA iyaAa, in the 21st verse of the first chapter of Genesis. The same Greek word is used in the 17th verse of the first chapter of Jonah. In the book of Job (vii. 12), and in that of Ezekiel (xxxii. 2), the translation uses the term aptbccer. In Matthew (xii. 40), where the swallowing up of Jonah is alluded to, tc-7rros is employed.
In Barker's 'Bible' (1615) the passage in Genesis is translated, "Then God created the great whales," much the same as it stands in the version now read in our churches, "And God created great whales."
The other passages are translated in Barker's Bible' as follows :— Jonah (i. 17), "Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah : and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights : "—Job (vii. 12), "Am I a sea or a whale fish, that thou keepest me in ward l"—Ezekiel (xxxii. 2), "Thou art like a lyon of the nations, and art as a dragon in the sea; " in a note 'or whale' is added :—Matthew (xii. 40), "For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly," &c.
In the version now used in our churches the passage in Jonah is verbatim the same as in Barker ; that in Job is thus rendered, "Am I a sea, or a whale, that thou settest a watch over me 1"—that in Ezekiel, "Thou art like a young lion of the nations, and thou art as a whale in the seas : "—that in Matthew is identical with the passage in Barker.
These are merely cited as examples : there are other passages in the Old Testament in which the words whale and KiTyr occur in the English and Creek versions. It would be beside the present question to enter into the discussion whether the whale was meant, or a crocodile, as some will have it, in the verses above quoted ; it is sufficient for our purpose to show the commonly received opinion that a whale was a fish.
In the Index to Pliny's Natural History' we find the Whales treated as Fishes, "Balienarum Piseium Consideratio," "Baleen piscis," &c. ; but in the work itself the Baleen. and Physeter are noticed as Bc4uce, and a fair account is given of their spouting and general habits. The 7th chapter of his ninth book, indeed, is headed "An gpirent places, an dormiant ;" but in that chapter he expressly states that neither whales nor dolphins (balainis nee delphinis) have gills, but breathe by means of fistula', or blow-holes, which appertain to the lungs.