362 FOLLOW THE WHALE 



the whales, nonetheless, remains right before our eyes today, in 

 South America, in West Africa, in India, and in China, in the form 

 of the little platanistids and certain aberrant forms of true dolphins, 

 notably those called the Irrawaddy dolphin and some species of the 

 genus Sotalia. These dolphins live in fresh water, some near the 

 mouths of great rivers, some at their heads thousands of miles away 

 from the sea, some in tiny streams or in flood waters covering the 

 floor of the jungle, and some in fresh-water lakes. One of them ap- 

 parently feeds exclusively on vegetable matter. 



From time to time throughout what has gone before, we have 

 referred to dolphins, and we have described a few of them in some 

 detail. The name "dolphin" presents us with several difficulties which 

 must now be disposed of without further delay. First, there has re- 

 cently arisen an altogether preposterous notion that the name dol- 

 phin should be applied only to a kind of fish, and that all dolphins 

 be called "porpoises." Nothing could be more inaccurate according 

 not only to the laws of scientific precedence, but also to two thou- 

 sand years of linguistic tradition and, I would also point out, to 

 plain common sense. This is an example of the worst kind of mis- 

 representation, such as is today so widely disseminated under the 

 guise of scientific fact, even by the more responsible sections of the 

 press. 



There is a small group of fishes known as the Coryphoenidae 

 which grow to a length of six feet and feed on flying fish. When 

 these were classified in the last century, they lacked a popular Eng- 

 lish name and were dubbed quite arbitrarily "dolphin-fish" by some- 

 body. This name is unknown to tropical mariners or fishermen, who 

 mostly seem to call them "carries." Then again, some of the strange, 

 primitive, cartilaginous fishes known as chimaeras (Chimaeridae) 

 have for somewhat longer been referred to by some sailors as "dol- 

 phins" because of their resemblance to the mythical dolphins of 

 classical and neoclassical statuary, with pronounced triangular dorsal 

 fins. But nobody who has been to sea has ever called any fish a "dol- 

 phin." Further, our word dolphin comes straight from the Latin 

 delphinus, which in turn comes directly from the more ancient 

 Greek delphinios, or delphoi, and has been in world-wide use for a 

 thousand years for these small whales. But even worse than the 

 practice of calling some fish a dolphin is the quite inexcusable sug- 



