—_ wr), Se 
~~ 
THE DOLPHINS. 409 
caught, the experienced fisherman allows him to play, when he 
soon becomes exhausted, and is drawn upon deck. Some people 
prefer to draw up the fish at once, but they seldom secure him, for 
his rough jerks, when out of his own element, generally enable 
him to escape. 
The most common of all the cetaceans is the porpoise or porpesse 
—a name derived from the Italian porco pesce—hog-fish. It 
appears in almost all the European seas and on the American 
coast. It is about six feet long, bluish black on its back, and 
white underneath. The dorsal fin is placed in the middle of the 
back ; both jaws are furnished with numerous small teeth. The 
whole body of the porpoise is covered with a layer of fat an inch 
thick, and the flesh which is found beneath is pink, and eats not 
unlike pork. The porpoises swim in shoals, called schools by the 
sailors ; and thus in company hunt mackerel, herrings, and salmon, 
spreading terror and consternation wherever they appear. They 
frequently approach the shore, where they are found rooting up the 
marine vegetation with their snouts, like pigs. 
The grampus is a larger though less common cetacean than the 
porpoise. Though a native of the north seas, it is frequently found 
on the coasts of these islands. Its length is some twenty-four feet ; 
it is extremely fierce, and proves a destructive enemy to its rela- 
tions the dolphin and porpoise ; it is said even to attack the giant 
of the tribe—the whale. 
Narwhal or Sea Unicorn, an inhabitant of the Arctic seas, is a 
huge cetacea, bold and active, armed with a powerful and terrible 
instrument of attack. The narwhal is from twenty to thirty feet 
long. He has projecting from his snout a sort of great halberd, a 
long sword of ivory, spirally drawn to a point. This enormous 
tusk springs from a socket in the maxillary bone of the upper jaw, 
and measures often Six feet from the end of the snout. This 
weapon used formerly to be called the unicorn’s horn. There are 
two preserved in the Museum of the Faculty in Paris, the larger 
is six or seven feet long, and at the base measures twenty inches 
in circumference. These tusks were formerly part of the treasure 
in the Abbey of St. Denis. With what object these unicorns’ horns 
were preserved by the abbots we are not informed. The corre- 
