THE DOLPHIN. 



2G5 



a moment above water; sometimes, indeed, 

 their too eager pursuits expose them to dan- 

 ger ; and a shoal of herrings often allures 

 them out of their depth. In such a case, the 

 hungry animal continues to flounder in the 

 shallows till knocked on the head, or till the 

 returning tide seasonably comes to its relief. 

 But all this tribe, and the dolphin in particu- 

 lar, are not less swift than destructive. No 

 fish could escape them, but from the awkward 

 position of the mouth, which is placed in a 

 manner under the head : yet, even with these 

 disadvantages, their depredations are so great, 

 that they have been justly styled the plun- 

 derers of the deep. 



What could induce the ancients to a pre- 

 dilection in favour of these animals, particu- 

 larly the dolphin, it is not easy to account for. 

 Historians and philosophers seem to have con- 

 tended who should invent the greatest num- 

 ber of fables concerning them. The dolphin 

 was celebrated in the earliest time for its 

 fondness to the human race, and was distin- 

 guished by the epithets of the boy-loving and 

 philanthropist. Scarcely an accident could 

 happen at sea, but the dolphin offered himself 



to convoy the unfortunate to shore. The 

 musician flung into the sea by pirates, the 

 boy taking an airing in the midst of the sea, 

 and returning again in safety, were obliged 

 to the dolphin for its services. It is not easy, 

 I say, to assign a cause why the ancients 

 should thus have invented so many fables in 

 their favour. The figure of these animals is 

 far from prejudicing us in their interest; 

 their extreme rapacity tends still less to en- 

 dear them ; I know nothing that can reconcile 

 them to man and excite his prejudices, except 

 that when taken they sometimes have a plain- 

 tive moan, with which they continue to ex- 

 press their pain till they expire. This, at 

 first, might have excited human pity; arid 

 that might have produced affection. At pre- 

 sent, these fishes are regarded even by the 

 vulgar in a very different light ; their appear- 

 ance is far from being esteemed a favourable 

 omen by the seamen ; and from their bound- 

 ings, springs, and frolics in the water, ex- 

 perience has taught the mariners to prepajo 

 for a storm. 



But it is not to one circumstance only that 

 the ancients have confined their fabulous re- 



bore an image of the dolphin, and it is certain it is seen 

 in very ancient medals and coins. It very early ap- 

 peared on the shield of some of the princes of France ; 

 it gave a name to a fair province of that empire, and 

 hence a title to the heir-apparent of the crown. 



Scarcely less fabulous are those other narratives which 

 have been transmitted on the testimony of the early 

 naturalists. They tell us that the dolphin made itself 

 familiar with man, and conceived a warm attachment 

 for him. Pliny narrates that in Barbary, near the town of 

 Hippo, a dolphin used to frequent the shore, and accept 

 of food from any hand which supplied it; it would mix 

 among those who were bathing, would allow them to 

 mount its back, would consign itself with docility to their 

 direction, and obey them with as much celerity as pre- 

 cision (lib. ix. chap. 48). Still more extraordinary is 

 that other tale the ancients relate in illustration of the 

 assertion that the dolphin was yet more partial to chil- 

 dren than to adults. Thus, according to Pliny, in 

 several chronicles it was recorded that a dolphin which 

 had penetrated the lake of Lucrinus, in Campania, every 

 day received bread from the hand of a child, answering 

 to his call, and transporting him on its back to school to 

 the other side of the lake. This intimacy continued for 

 several years, when the boy dying, the affectionate dol- 

 phin, overwhelmed with grief, soon sunk under its be- 

 reavement. For such stories as these, which might be 

 easily multiplied from Herodotus, Plutarch, &c., we 

 apprehend that most of .our readers will have but little 

 patience ; and we therefore dismiss them with the well 

 known apophthegm, 



Sed quid non Grecia mendax 

 Audet in historia ? 



The common dolphin is usually six or seven feet 

 long, sometimes nine or ten. Its proportions on the 

 whole are pleasing, and admirably adapted for swim- 

 ming. The pectoral fin is oval and placed very low; 

 the tail is large and powerful. Its tints, though not 

 gay, are attractive. It is black on the back, grayish 

 on the flanks, and white underneath, with a peculiar 

 arid sutiny glistening wl.en in or newly taken out of 



VOL. II. 



the water, which is striking and beautiful. It may 

 be well, however, here to remark, that " the dolphin 

 with its many dying colours" mentioned in many books, 

 and sung by modern poets, is not this, but quite another 

 animal, belonging to a different class of the animal king- 

 dom ; it is a true fish, the beautifully coloured Coryphcena 

 Hippuris, the Dorado of the Portuguese. 



The common dolphin is an inhabitant of the Euro- 

 pean seas, of the Atlantic, and Mediterranean. It is 

 more common in the temperate zone than in places 

 that are further south. It is true that other species of 

 this genus frequent the seas of Africa, Asia, and Ame- 

 rica ; but it is by no means satisfactorily ascertained 

 that the species now under consideration has this exten- 

 sive range. The opposite opinion seems to be much 

 more probable. They navigate the waters of the ocean 

 in more or less numerous troops, and their vigorous 

 springs and rapid natation, which is daily observed by 

 voyagers, has long made them famous. The common 

 dolphin has long been peculiarly signalized for these 

 qualities, which however it enjoys only in common with 

 the larger number of its congeners, and on these points 

 it does not merit any particular distinctions. To swim 

 with the rapidity of an arrow, to shoot ahead of vessels 

 which are scudding before the breeze, to spring out of the 

 water, and over the waves, are qualifications possessed 

 alike by all the smaller cetacea which live in troops in 

 the ocean. 



Pernetty's Dolphin. On the 30th of October the 

 vessel of Bougainville, in which Pernetty sailed, being 

 near the Cape-de-Verd islands, was surrounded by about 

 a hundred dolphins, which approached very near them. 

 " They appeared," says Pernetty, " to have come only 

 for the purpose of amusing us ; they made extraordinary 

 leaps out of the water ; many of these in their capering 

 vaulted four feet high, and turned over two or three 

 times in the air." 



One of these dolphins which was taken, weighed a 

 hundred pounds ; its beak was slender, and covered 

 with a thick and grayish skin. "I think," says the 

 author, " it was of that species which is named the 

 Monk of the Sea, for the anterior part of the head tor- 



