Moby Dick

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OCTAVOES.*--These embrace the whales of middling magnitude, among which
present may be numbered:--I., the GRAMPUS; II., the BLACK FISH; III.,
the NARWHALE; IV., the THRASHER; V., the KILLER.


*Why this book of whales is not denominated the Quarto is very plain.
Because, while the whales of this order, though smaller than those of
the former order, nevertheless retain a proportionate likeness to them
in figure, yet the bookbinder's Quarto volume in its dimensioned form
does not preserve the shape of the Folio volume, but the Octavo volume
does.


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