MA MMALIA— PORPOISE. 395 



A shoal of dolphins will frequently attend the course of a ship, for the 

 scraps that are thrown overboard, or the barnacles adhering to tlieir sides. 

 A shoal of them followed the ships of Sir Richard Hawkins, upwards of a 

 thousand leagues. Their gambols and evolutions on the surface of the 

 water are often very amusing. A dolphin has been known to spring forward 

 more than twenty feet at a single bound. They inhabit the Atlantic and 

 Pacific oceans. 



The flesh, though tolerably well tasted, is dry and insipid ; the best parts 

 are near the head. It is seldom eaten but when young and tender. Dol- 

 phins are said to change their color before they die, and again after they 

 aie dead. 



THE PORPOISE. 1 



In its general form, the porpoise, or porpus, very much resembles the 

 dolphin. It is, however, somewhat less in size, and has a snout much 

 broader and shorter. It is generally from six to seven feet in length ; its 

 Dody is thick towards the head, but grows slender towards the tail, forming 

 the figure of a cone. In each jaw are forty-four to fifty teeth, small, sharp 

 pointed, and moveable ; and so placed that the teeth of one jaw lock into 

 those of the other. The eyes are small, as is the spout-hole at the top 

 of the head. In colors the back is black, and the belly whitish, but they 

 sometimes vary. 



Porpoises are very numerous in the river St Lawrence, where there is a 

 white kind. They are seldom seen, except in troops of six or seven to 

 thirty and upwards ; and, like the dolphin, they are very agile and sportive. 

 In the most tempestuous weather, they can surmount the waves, and 

 pursue their course, without injury. Seamen have a superstitious detesta- 

 tion of them, because they believe their appearance to be ominous of ap- 

 proaching storms. 



These animals live chiefly on the smaller fish. At the season when 

 mackerel, herrings, pilchards, and salmon appear, the porpoise swarms; 



1 Dclphinus phoewna, Lin. 



