Moby-Dick; or, The Whale

Thus ends BOOK I. (_Folio_), and now begins BOOK II. (_Octavo_).

OCTAVOES.[4] These embrace the whales of middling magnitude, among
which at present may be numbered:—I., the _Grampus;_ II., the _Black
Fish;_ III., the _Narwhale;_ IV., the _Thrasher;_ V., the _Killer_.

  [4] 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
  diminished 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 features of the leviathan, most naturalists have recognised
him for one. He is of moderate octavo 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