Chapter 32 - Cetology Quiz — Moby-Dick; or, The Whale

How does Ishmael classify whales in Chapter 32?

• By color and habitat
• By size using book-format names (Folio, Octavo, Duodecimo)
• By the Linnaean system of genus and species
• By their commercial value

How does Ishmael define a whale?

• A warm-blooded marine mammal
• A spouting fish with a horizontal tail
• The largest creature in the ocean
• A cetacean with baleen or teeth

Which whale does Ishmael declare the new "monarch of the seas"?

• The Right Whale
• The Fin-Back
• The Sperm Whale
• The Hump Back

Why does Ishmael exclude manatees and dugongs from his classification?

• They are too small
• They do not spout
• They live in freshwater only
• They have vertical tails

Which whale does Ishmael compare to Cain?

• The Sperm Whale
• The Killer
• The Fin-Back
• The Narwhale

What does Ishmael compare his unfinished cetological system to?

• The Tower of Babel
• The Parthenon
• The Cathedral of Cologne
• The Pyramids of Egypt

What is the Huzza Porpoise named for?

• Its distinctive sound
• Its hilarious, cheerful swimming in shoals
• A Nantucket whaling captain
• Its huzzah-shaped dorsal fin

Who does Ishmael cite as the best authority on the Right Whale?

• Surgeon Beale
• Baron Cuvier
• Captain Scoresby
• John Hunter

Ishmael accepts Linnaeus's classification of whales as mammals.

Ishmael acknowledges that his classification system is incomplete.

What does "cetology" mean as Ishmael uses it?

• The study of ancient sea myths
• The science of whales
• The art of whale hunting
• The anatomy of fish

What does "gregarious" mean in the sentence "The Fin-Back is not gregarious"?

• Dangerous or aggressive
• Fond of company; sociable
• Large in size
• Fast-swimming

What is "spermaceti" as described in this chapter?

• A type of whale tooth
• A waxy substance obtained from the sperm whale's head
• The blubber of any large whale
• A rare coral found near whale habitats