DOLPHINS 401 



once saw a very young porpoise taken out of the 

 stomach of a very large cod. 



The dolphins include several genera and many 

 species, of which it is impossible to treat within the 

 short limits of this article. Neither, with any amount 

 of description, would it be often possible for the traveller 

 to identify the many dolphins that he sees tumbling 

 and leaping alongside his ship, with whose course it 

 gives them no trouble to keep pace. The Common 

 Dolphin (Delphinus delphis) is particularly abundant 

 in the Mediterranean, and its representations on Greek 

 coins and in medieval heraldry, though sometimes 

 fanciful enough, are by no means unlike the glimpse 

 we catch of it as it flings itself out of the sea. The 

 White-beaked Dolphins (Lagenorhynchus) are also not 

 very uncommon visitors to our coasts. One which I 

 once found in Galway Bay was streaked and scored 

 all over with what seemed to be traces of an encounter 

 with some great cuttle-fish ; and similar markings, 

 ascribed to the same cause, have been seen by others 

 both on these dolphins and on some of the Ziphioid 

 Whales. 



There are a few rare and curious Cetaceans which 

 inhabit rivers. There is a genus of dolphins called 

 Sotalia, of which one species inhabits the Cameroon 

 River (where it is said to feed, alone of all whales, 

 upon a vegetable diet) ; another lives in China, in the 

 River Amoy ; and a third in the rivers and bays of the 

 Atlantic Coast of South America. The last is very 

 common at Rio de Janeiro, where it is protected by 

 superstition, having a reputation of being friendly 

 to man, and of bringing home for burial the bodies of 

 the drowned. 



Then, lastly, there are three other river-dwelling 

 dolphins, long-snouted, many-toothed, and possessing 



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