DUGONGS, MANATEES, WHALES, PORPOISES, DOLPHINS 335 



Phatt tj A. S. Rutland & Sam 



BOTTLE-NOSED DOLPHIN 



From S to g feet long, found from the Mediterranean to the North Sea 



like many of its group, 

 teeth in either jaw, is a 

 voracious feeder, preying in 

 estuaries on salmon and 

 flounders, and on more open 

 parts of the coast on pilchards 

 and mackerel. It is occasion- 

 ally a serious nuisance in 

 the Mediterranean sardine- 

 fisheries, and I have known 

 of the fishermen of Collioure, 

 in the Gulf of Lyons, appeal- 

 ing to the French Govern- 

 ment to send a gunboat from 

 Toulon that might steam after 

 the marauders and frighten 

 them away. One of the most 

 remarkable cases of a feeding 



porpoise that I can recall was thav of one which played with a conger-eel in a Cornish harbour 

 as a cat might play with a mouse, blowing the fish 20 or 30 feet through the air, and 

 swimming after it so rapidly as to catch it again almost as it touched the water. 



The DOLPHIN, which is in some seasons as common in the British Channel as the more 

 familiar porpoise, is distinguished by its small head and long beak, the lower jaw always 

 carrying more teeth than the upper. It feeds on pilchards and mackerel, and, like the porpoises, 

 gambols, particularly after an east wind, with its fellows close inshore. There are many other 

 marine mammals somewhat loosely bracketed as dolphins. RlSSO's DOLPHIN, for instance, a rare 

 visitor to our coasts, has a striped skin, and its jaws are without teeth, which distinguish it 

 from the common dolphin and most of the others. It cannot therefore feed on fishes, and 

 most probably eats squid and cuttle-fish. The BOTTLE-NOSED DOLPHIN, a species occurring in 

 the greatest numbers on the Atlantic coast of North America, is regularly hunted for its oil. 

 HEAVYSIDE's DOLPHIN, which hails from South African waters, is a smaller kind, chiefly remarkable 

 for the curious distribution of black and white on its back and sides. 



A word must, in conclusion, be said on the economic value of the whales. Fortunately, as 

 they are getting rarer, substitutes for their once invaluable products are being from time to time 

 discovered, and much of the regret at their extermination by wasteful slaughter is sentimental 

 and not economic. For whalebone it is not probable that a perfect substitute will ever be 

 found. It therefore maintains a high price, though the former highest market value of over 

 $IO,OOO per ton has fallen to something nearer the half. The sperm-oil from the sperm-whale, 

 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ and the train oil from that 



of the right-whales, the sper- 

 maceti out of the cachalot's 

 forehead and the ambergris 

 secreted in its stomach, are 

 the other valuable products. 

 Ambergris is a greyish, fatty 

 secretion, caused by the irri- 

 tation set up in the whale's in- 

 side by the undigested beaks 

 of cuttle-fish. Its market 

 price is about $25 per ounce. 



HEAVYSIDE'S DOLPHIN A lump of 240 Ibs. sold for 



A small, peculiarly coloured species from the Cafe nearly $IOO,OOO. 



