HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 



13 



covered with scales - which is not at all surprising when we consider that 

 it was not until the eighteenth century that dolphins were first distin- 

 guished from fishes, and this despite the fact that Aristotle, the father of 

 biology and medicine, had pointed out as early as 400 b.c. that dolphins 

 have warm blood and lungs, that they are viviparous, and that they suckle 

 their young just as lun-ses, dogs and human beings do. Aristotle also 

 mentioned the 'Mysticetus\ an animal which had 'pig's bristles' for 

 teeth. This was most probably his way of describing the hairy fringe at 

 the inner side of the baleen of the whalebone whales. He also knew the 

 Sperm Whale, which he called Phalaena, and he listed the most important 

 characteristics of porpoises and dolphins. 



Though the Greeks were acquainted with Cetaceans, which are also 

 mentioned in various biblical passages, it seeins that the ancients never 

 hunted the bigger species. While some Mediterranean people caught 

 dolphins, others thought it was a sin to kill or to hurt an animal that had 

 played so large a part in the sagas and myths of yore. Being the sailor's 

 constant companion on his long and distant journeys to every part of 

 the world, the dolphin was for long regarded as sacrosanct. Odysseus 

 proudly bore a crest with the dolphin device, and a dolphin always 



Figure j. Italian five-lire coin showing 

 dolphin. 



Figure 5. Dutch stamp ( igsg) . 



