572 



THE WHALES. 



wounded companions. Its food consists of fish, 

 Shrimps, cephalopoda and other marine animals. 

 Its favorite prey are Sardines, Herrings and Flying- 

 fish. 



Dolphins are born singly; the young one is from 

 twenty to twenty-four inches in length, and the 

 mother nurses it very tenderly for a long time. 



The Dolphin encounters a worse foe in the Killer 

 Whale than it does in Man; for the latter pursues it 

 only when the lack of the fresh meat of land ani- 

 mals forces him to supply his need with the flesh 

 of the Dolphin. This fact is to be attributed to a 

 certain reverence on the part of Man which the ani- 

 mal enjoys up to the present day. 



As early as 1819 A. von Humboldt published an 

 account of a Dolphin inhabiting the fresh waters of 

 South America, without, however, giving a detailed 

 description of it. The painstaking German natural- 

 ists, Spix and Martens, published a more accurate 

 description in 1831, but the final account is due to 

 the Frenchman, D' Orbigny. 



and in the Orinoco. It is said to differ from the 

 ocean Dolphin in that its movements arc slower and 

 less active; it swims more quietly, often rising to 

 the surface to breathe and generally gathers only 

 into small groups. 



Bates tells us that the Amazon River is inhabited 

 by at least three different kinds of Dolphins and 

 that Whales are numerous everywhere but surpris- 

 ingly plentiful in some places. "On the wider parts 

 of the riverbed," says this observer, "from its mouth 

 upward for fifteen hundred miles, some one of the 

 species can be constantly heard to roll, blow or 

 snort, especially at night, and it is these very sounds 

 which contribute not a little to inspire the traveler 

 with the conception of oceanic vastness and soli- 

 tude." The food of these Dolphins consists mainly 

 of small fish; but they are said not to disdain various 

 fruits which fall from the trees into the river. The 

 Inias show the greatest preference for the clear, 

 deep estuaries formed by those waters at the junc- 

 tions of tributaries with the main streams, evidently 



noiu 



THE DOLPHIN. The smooth-skinned, lively and voracious Dolphin which finds itself just as much at home in the deep ocean as near 



shore, is a familiar sight to all who go to sea, for it follows in the wake of vessels sometimes for days. It is a smooth-skinned, compact animal, 

 and its muzzle is elongated into a beak-like projection. (De/p/iinus delphus.) 



Thelnia,or The Inia or Bonto (Inia amazonica) 

 Bonto, of South represents the genus of the Long- 

 Amerwa. beaked Dolphins {Inia). Its muzzle 

 is elongated into a narrow, roundish, obtuse beak, 

 overgrown with stiff hair, and each jaw has sixty- 

 six or sixty-eight pointed teeth with curved, strong 

 crowns. The slender body is equipped with long 

 flippers, notched at the upper ends and tapering in 

 crescent shape towards the extremities; the tail-fin 

 has no flukes and the dorsal fin is very low. The 

 length of the male varies between six and ten feet. 

 The female is said to be only half as large. The 

 Inia is of a pale bluish color on its entire upper 

 surface and pinkish red beneath; but there are many 

 deviations; sometimes one finds individuals of a pro- 

 nounced reddish or even blackish tint. Recently 

 naturalists have differentiated and classified several 

 allied species. 



As far as is now known, this Dolphin inhabits 

 nearly all South American rivers between the tenth 

 and seventeenth parallels of south latitude. It is 

 well known in the Amazon River and its tributaries, 



because such places harbor the greatest number of 

 fish. 



The Inia is not pursued by the natives. Its flesh 

 is said to be tough, its blubber small in quantity, and 

 its skin suitable for scarcely anything but the manu- 

 facture of shields, the capture thus being remunera- 

 tive only in very slight degree. 



THE SOOSOO. 



Pliny mentions a Dolphin under the name of Pla- 

 tanista, which lives in the Ganges River in India, and 

 according to his description is twenty-three feet 

 long. The animal really exists, but is much smaller 

 than the celebrated old author says, being only six 

 feet eight inches long. This Whale is the Soosoo of 

 the Ganges (Platanista gangctica) and is specifically 

 characterized by a very slender body, a crescent 

 shaped, forked tail-fin, and a long, beak-like snout 

 curving upward, the upper jaw of which forms a 

 crest projecting in front and surrounding the blow- 

 holes. The jaws contain thirty or thirty-two strong, 

 conical, pointed teeth. The fin on the back is indi- 



