DOLPHINS. 245 



toward the shore, than she dashed again into the shallow 

 water, where she made so terrible a resistance, by 

 lashing around her in every direction, that she kept the 

 enemy at bay till the tide rose, upon which she and her 

 young one rode triumphantly to the sea ! 



As the body of the grampus contains very little oil, 

 not enough to pay for the capture, the animal floats 

 very deep in the water ; but then, both its velocity and 

 its voracity are such, that it is very apt to dash itself 

 aground, where it makes a violent resistance, and is 

 exceedingly difficult to kill. 



Though many specimens of the larger kinds of dol- 

 phins have been met with, yet there is a good deal of 

 confusion in their history. La Cepede, in his natural 

 history of the cetacece, makes two species of the dark- 

 coloured and voracious grampus, with the long dorsal 

 fin, delphmus orca, the common grampus ; and del- 

 phinus gladiator, the sea sword ; while Cuvier and 

 others reckon but one, and some consider the Ca'ing 

 whale as only a variety of the grampus. In form and 

 colour they are all very much alike, being clumsy and 

 unsightly in appearance, dark on the upper part, and 

 very white below ; but their habits are described as 

 varying from the extreme of active ferocity to that 

 of indolence. That may in part be owing to the condi- 

 tion they were in at the time when they were observed ; 

 but the ca'ing whale has the swimming paws much 

 narrower, and wants not only the white spot on the 

 shoulder and near the eye, that is found on the others, 

 but sometimes has the body entirely black. 



About twelve years ago, a vast shoal of these animals 

 entered the Firth of Tay, and two dozen, at least, 

 Y 3 



