What Is a Whale?

A whale is a spouting fish with a horizontal tail. A walrus spouts much like a whale, but the walrus is not a fish because he is amphibious. By the above definition of what a whale is, i do by no means exclude from the leviathanic brotherhood any sea creature hitherto identified with the whale by the best informed nantucketers. But as these pigfish are a noisy, contemptible set mostly lurking in the mouths of rivers and feeding on wet hay, i deny their credentials as whales. I have presented them with their passports to quit the kingdom of sotology. Now then come the grand divisions of the entire whale host. First,