was to my advantage as heretofore I was bucking a cross tide 

 and the waves would wash over my head and I would swallow 

 a great deal of water. This sea animal which I knew by this time 

 must be a porpoise had guided me so that I was being carried 

 with the tide. 



"After another eternity and being thankful that my friend 

 was keeping away the sharks and barracuda for which these 

 waters are famous, the porpoise moved back of me and came 

 around to my right side. I moved over to give room to my com- 

 panion and later knew that had not the porpoise done this, I 

 would have been going downstream to deeper and faster mov- 

 ing waters. The porpoise had guided me to the section where 

 the water was the most shallow. 



"Shortly I touched what felt hke fish netting to my feet. It 

 was seaweed and under that the glorious and most welcome 

 bottom. 



"As I turned toward shore, stumbling, losing balance, and 

 saying a prayer of thanks, my rescuer took off like a streak on 

 down the channel." 



The reader must be left to make what he can of such occur- 

 rences. Dr. George G. Goodwin of the American Museum of 

 Natural History doubts the intention of dolphins to save drown- 

 ing persons.' "Anything floating," he writes, "on or near the 

 surface of the sea will attract his attention. His first action on 

 approaching the object of his curiosity is to roll under it. In 

 doing so, something partly submerged, like the body of a drown- 

 ing person, is nudged to the surface of the water. The sea does 

 its part and automatically drives floating objects toward the 

 beach." This may well be so in some cases, but it is an explana- 

 tion which does not fit the incidents described by Mrs. Bhss, in 

 which she was not pushed but guided. Occam's razor should 

 not be too bluntly applied. 



^George G. Goodwin, "Porpoise — Friend of Man?" Natural History, LVI (1947), 

 337- 



