362 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



but every year come new actors, and the lines which they repeat 

 were " written for them centuries before they were born." But 

 each generation which passes changes their lives just a little, just 

 as the brook and the meadow itself is changing. 



WHITE WHALES IN CONFINEMENT. 



BY FEED MATHER. 



f I ^HE dolphin family (Delphinidce) contains nine genera, with 

 -- only one species in each, but the most interesting one is the 

 white whale (Delphinapterus leucas of Pallas, or D. caiodon [Linn.] 

 of Gill), because it is the only one that can be kept in confinement 

 and its habits observed under semi-domestication. It has fallen to 

 my lot to care for several of these animals in confinement, and to 

 have a chance to note their peculiarities. 



" The Great New York Aquarium," at Broadway and Thirty- 

 fourth Street, New York city, was built by Messrs. Coup and Reiche, 

 and opened in 1876. Mr. Butler was the superintendent. I super- 

 vised fish culture, and when not otherwise engaged made collections 

 of fishes and invertebrates in Bermuda and in other parts. In 1877 

 I had charge of their branch aquarium at Coney Island. At both 

 places we had many white whales at different times, for the man- 

 agement would keep whales penned up on the St. Lawrence River 

 to replace those which died, and would never show more than two at 

 a time, claiming that they were rare animals and only to be had 

 at " enormous " expense. The aquarium was a private concern ; 

 admission fifty cents; and as the owners were W. C. Coup, a former 

 circus proprietor and once the business manager of Barnum's Cir- 

 cus, and Henry Reiche, an animal dealer, who would sell you 

 giraffes, elephants, or white mice, the attractions were duly exag- 

 gerated by the press agent, no matter what the facts might be. This 

 is why we kept a reserve stock of white whales. It would never 

 do to have the public know that they were common during the sum- 

 mer in the St. Lawrence, and when one was getting weak another 

 would be sent down, and the public supposed that the same pair was 

 on exhibition all the time. 



This species is common in the North Atlantic, North Pacific, and 

 Arctic Oceans. According to the late Prof. G. Brown Goode, 

 " stragglers have been seen in the Frith of Forth, latitude 56, while 

 on the American coast several have been taken within the past decade 

 [1880] on the north shore of Cape Cod. They are slightly abundant 

 in New England waters, but in the St. Lawrence River and on the 



