l:r) NATURAL HISTORY. 



red and blue colours of the heraldic lion are not less fabulous 

 than the changing tints of the dying dolphin so dear to poetry. 

 Alas ! our unpoetical Dolphin, when we have harpooned and 

 brought him on deck, is only black and white, and all the 

 change that he makes, is that the black becomes brown in 

 time, and the white grey. 



We will leave poetry and its beautiful errors, and pass on to 

 facts. The Dolphin is, like the whale, a warm-blooded animal, 

 suckles its young, and is forced to come to the surface in order 

 to breathe. Its snout is very long, and is apparently used for 

 capturing such fish, &c. as live in the mud. 



The length is from six to ten feet. Several species of Dol- 

 phin are known, of which the British Museum possesses six. 



xA. (Gr. Quxaiva, a Porpoise.) 



Commuuis (Lat. common), the Porpoise. 



These animals may be observed in plenty playing their ab- 

 surd antics off' every coast of England. There are numbers of 

 them off the Nore, a place which they frequent greatly, as it is 

 at the mouth of a river, and they find more food there than in 

 the open sea. They tumble at the surface of the water for 

 the purpose of breathing. 



In the olden times, when glass windows were considered 

 an effeminate luxury, and rushes supplied the place of carpets, 

 the flesh of the POE.POISE constituted one of the standard 

 delicacies of a public feast, but it has long since been deposed 

 from its rank at the table. Like most of the cetacea, its flesh 

 has a very strong oily flavour, which, however relished by an 



