SEALS AND WHALES OF THE BRITISH SEAS. 



Porpoise being obtuse, and the beak altogether absent. It is a native of the 

 temperate seas, and becomes scarcer as the north is approached. Van 

 Beneden was not able to record it as frequenting the Belgian coast, but 

 Lilljeborg says it is occasionally obtained on the coasts of Scandinavia, and 

 Herr CoUett has hardly any doubt that it occurs on the Norwegian coast as far 

 north as Finmarken, and a large "school," seen by Malmgren in April, 1861, 

 in West-ljord, between the Loffoden Islands and the mainland, was referred 

 by him, without hesitation, to this species. In Greenland it is said to be met 



Fig. 27. Common Dolphin {^Dclphinus delphis, Linn.). 



with, but Professor Flower thinks it doubtful whether some species of an 

 allied genus may not have been mistaken for it. 



This is the true Dolphin of the Ancients, of which Professor Bell, in 

 his ' British Quadrupeds,' says : " the mythological and poetical associations 

 which belong to the Dolphin, its reputed attachment to mankind, its benevo- 

 lent aid in cases of shipwreck, its dedication to the gods, and many other attri- 

 butes expressive of the high estimation in which it was held in olden times. 



