SQUIRRELS, RATS, PORCUPINES, ETC. 315 



Platanista gangetica, as a member of the garden 

 Fauna of the locality. One can hardly think of even- 

 ings during the cold weather, spent on the river- 

 face of the garden with the stream slipping by in 

 oily sheets all glorious in reflections of the crimson, 

 ruddy brown, and gold of the after-glow, and painted 

 with blue and silver from the upper and eastern 

 sky ; or covered by the images of innumerable rosy 

 cloudlets, amid which a silver moon was slowly 

 rising without mental vision of the smooth, grey 

 heads and shining backs of dolphins, appearing and 

 disappearing in the tide, as the animals wandered 

 hither and thither, sighing aloud each time they 

 came to the surface. When one of them rises fully 

 in still water, the glassy surface of the latter is 

 suddenly pierced by a long, slender snout, followed 

 by a pale, shining head, that at first rises almost 

 vertically into the air, and then curves over and sinks, 

 whilst a great, polished, grey back heaves moment- 

 arily up into view. Often, however, they roll at a 

 somewhat greater depth, and then only a transitory 

 glimpse of a grey islet, or a mere passing heave and 

 swirl in the water, is all the evidence there is of 

 the event. 



The sound that they make in blowing is of a 

 gently sighing nature, much softer than that emitted 

 by the common porpoises of the British coasts 

 puffies, as the fishermen of the east coast of Scot- 

 land call them and is of a character that readily 



