132 NATURAL HISTORY AND 



the deep was only a bottle-nose, or " black-fish/' it 

 was evident that the boatmen had made the lad 

 swallow a story " very like the fierce fish," whose 

 startling entree had whetted his appetite for the 

 terrible. 



On questioning the fishers next day, they 

 laughed heartily, saying it was true that a black- 

 fish had broken a net some miles below, and that 

 the one we saw had begun to blow and lash the 

 water with its tail, but these vagaries were only 

 signs of anxiety lest its young one, which no 

 doubt was near, might get among the boats and 

 nets. In place of dreading these small whales, 

 the fishers were always glad of their company, as 

 harbingers of a successful night's fishing ; and 

 about the same time last year I watched an old 

 female bottle-nose and two young ones gambol- 

 ling among the fleet of " scows," while the 

 crews looked kindly at them as the jackals of 

 their trade. 



Prodigious droves of porpoises also hang upon 

 the herring shoals. The smaller kind, called 

 " pelluchs," often spring several yards out of the 

 water, and come down with a thump that may be 



