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Whale
Sulphur Bottom Whale
Moby-Dick
Herman Melville
Chapter 32
Cetology
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Black Fish
BOOK II
(Octavo), CHAPTER I.
(Grampus)
Though this fish, whose loud sonorous breathing, or rather blowing, has furnished a proverb to landsmen, is so well known a denizen of the deep, yet is he not popularly classed among whales.
But possessing all the grand distinctive features of the leviathan, most naturalists have
recognized him for one.
He is of moderate octave size, varying from fifteen to twenty-five feet in length, and of corresponding dimensions round the waist.
He swims in herds; he is never regularly hunted, though his oil is considerable in quantity, and pretty good for light.
By some fishermen his approach is regarded as premonitory of the advance of the
great sperm whale.
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