510 DOLPHIN. 



Their sufferings forced from me tears of compas- 

 sion ; and while the fisherman was asleep, I threw 

 one, which seemed to suffer most, into the sea. But 

 this act of tenderness availed me nothing; for the 

 moanings of those that remained, seemed only to 

 be increased, and they seemed by signs too plain 

 to be misunderstood, to wish for a similar deliver- 

 ance." 



It appears, from the testimony of the accurate 

 Pabricius, in his Fauna Groenlandica, that the D. 

 Phocrena or Porpoise constantly swims in a curved 

 posture, depressing very considerably both head 

 and tail during that action ; and it is highly pro- 

 bable that the Dolphin swims in the same manner; 

 thus justifying, in some degree, the representa- 

 tions of the ancients ; who appear indeed to have 

 been guilty of some aggravation in this respect, 

 in their poetical and sculptorial representations, 

 while the moderns, on the contrary, have been 

 somewhat too severe in condemning them. 



The learned Sir Thomas Brown has a short 

 chapter on this subject in his celebrated work the 

 Pseudodoxia Epidemica, which I shall here intro- 

 duce, as at once comprising the principal remarks 

 which have been made on the subject, and at the 

 same time as a good example of that author's pe- 

 culiar style. 



" That Dolphins are crooked, is not only af- 

 firmed by the hand of the painter, but commonly 

 conceived their natural and proper figure ; which 

 is not only the opinion of our times, but seems 

 the belief of elder times before us. For beside the 



