86 



HA RD IV I CKE 'S S CIENCE - G O SSI P. 



to describe, but so easily understood when witnessed. 

 All this I understood in theory before, but it was a 

 new and beautiful sight to view the practice from a 

 stand-point, on a level with the animal itself, and 

 as it were in its own element. 



The food of the Porpoise consists of fish, and it 

 follows the shoals of herrings, &c, amongst which 

 it commits great depreciations ; it has a taste for 

 salmon, and is sometimes taken in the salmon-nets. 

 The period of gestation is said to be six months, and 

 it brings forth one young one at a birth ; its colour is 

 black on the back, shaded off to silver-grey on the 

 belly, the whole skin beautifully smooth and polished. 

 The teeth number about twenty- five on each side of 

 either jaw, and are spatulate, with a contracted neck, 

 unlike the usually conical teeth of the Dtlfihinidee. 

 The length is four or five feet. The flesh of the 

 Porpoise seems formerly to have been esteemed as an 

 article of food, and is mentioned several times in the 

 L'Estrange Household Book (15 19 to 1578) and 

 other similar records ; it is said by one who has eaten 



ancients could raise the most gorgeous structures of 

 poetry and religion upon the most slender basis . . . 

 it requires some stretch of the imagination to 

 identify the round-headed creature which is repre- 

 sented in ancient coins and statues, with the straight 

 sharped-beaked animal " which is here figured. It is 

 said to destroy at one fell swoop all the romance 

 which once surrounded this species ; but Dr. Gray 

 tells us that "the dying Dolphin's changing hues" 

 are not observed in a cetacean at all, but in a fish of 

 the genus Coryphmna, which, although normally 

 black, is stated by Mr. Couch (as quoted by Mr. 

 Yarrell) to have changed to a fine blue whilst he was 

 making a drawing of it. The food of the Dolphin 

 consists of fish, cuttlefish, and crustaceans, and on 

 the Cornish coast it makes its appearance in con- 

 siderable numbers, according to Mr. Couch, in the 

 month of September during the pilchard season. It 

 is very social in its habits, and even more sportive in 

 the water than its relative, the Porpoise. The upper 

 surface is black, shaded off to white below, the length 



Fig. 64. White-beaked Dolphin {Delphimts albirostris). 



it to be " excellent meat, dark in colour, and large in 

 fibre, but of excellent flavour, very tender, and full 

 of gravy." 



The Common Dolphin (Defykinus delphis, Linn.), 

 fig. 62, is not unfrequently met with in the seas 

 surrounding the British Isles, but it doubtless often 

 passes unrecognized. It may, however, be at once 

 distinguished from the Porpoise by its attenuated 

 beak, the head of the Porpoise being obtuse, and the 

 beak altogether absent. It is a native of the temper- 

 ate seas, and becomes scarcer as the north is ap- 

 proached. Lilljeborg says it is seldom obtained on 

 the coasts of Scandinavia; in Greenland it is rarely 

 met with. Professor Bell, in his "British Quadru- 

 peds," says: "The mythological and poetical associa- 

 tions which belong to the Dolphin, its reputed 

 attachment to mankind, its benevolent aid in cases of 

 shipwreck, its dedication to the gods, and many 

 other attributes expressive of the high estimation in 

 which it was held in olden times, afford a striking 

 example of how the unrestrained imagination of the 



about six to eight feet. The illustration s copied 

 from Reinhardt's figure. 



The Bottle-nosed Dolphin (D. titrsio, Fab.), 

 fig. 63, appears to be found occasionally from the 

 Mediterranean to the North Sea ; it is by no means, 

 however, a common species. 



Of the habits of this species very little is known : its 

 colour is black above, shaded to dirty white below, 

 and its length from 8 to 12 feet. The figure is from 

 a drawing of a nearly adult male taken at Holyhead, 

 in October, 1868, for which I am indebted to the 

 kindness of Prof. Flower. 



The White-sided Dolphin (D. aatlns, J. E. 

 Gray) is a rare species, which has occurred in a few 

 instances on the British coast : its colour is black above 

 and white below, between which runs a broad band of 

 yellowish brown, about the centre of which, and 

 surrounded by it, is a large oblong patch of pure 

 white. A figure and description taken from one of a 

 herd of twenty landed at Kirkwall, on the 21st August, 

 1858, will be found in the "Ann. and Mag. of 



