There is something deeply interesting in the manner in which the great Maker of all things, in giving laws to the animal kingdom, has thus presented so many illustrations of the parental relation. It is as if he would not leave his intelligent creatures destitute of memorials of their relation to himself; so that, while in the field and on the flood, they behold the signs of parental affection and filial dependence, they may be led to ponder the solemn question of their tender and faithful Parent in heaven—“If, then, I be a Father, where is mine honour?” The mysticetus occurs most abundantly in the frozen seas of Greenland and Davis’s Strait, in the bays of Baffin and Hudson, in the sea to the northward of Behring’s Strait, and along some part of the northern shores of Asia, and probably America. It is never met with in the German Ocean, and rarely within two hundred leagues of the British coast; but along the coasts of Africa and South America it is met with periodically, in considerable numbers. In these regions, it is attacked and captured by the southern British and American whalers, as well as by some of the people inhabiting the coasts to which it resorts. Whether this whale is precisely of the same kind as that of Spitzbergen and Greenland is uncertain, though it is evidently a mysticetus. One striking difference, possibly the effect of situation and climate, is, that the mysticetus in southern regions is often covered with barnacles, while those of the Arctic Seas are free from these shell-fish. Besides the formidable inroads made upon the whale by man, it is subject to annoyance from sharks, and it is also said from the narwal, sword-fish, and thrasher. The opinion as to the narwal I am persuaded is incorrect; the sword-fish and thrasher (if such an animal there be) may be enemies of the whale, and the shark certainly is hostile to the extent of his ability, which, in comparison to that of the whale, can hardly be very formidable.