DOLPHINS. 355 



they played about in these shoal-waters close in-shore 

 in confidence and security, and had done so for the 

 occasional years that he had observed them ; hence 

 it was, that although so common and so much within 

 the power of any one curious enough to shoot them, 

 they had never been disturbed, and no one knew 

 anything more of them, than that they were Dol- 

 phins. The mingled river and sea-water that at- 

 tracted them was a favourite fishing-ground of the 

 Osprey. That bird would be seen at the same sun- 

 set hours hovering within the river mouth, while the 

 Dolphins were busy with their chase on the outside. 

 The young Sharks were prodigiously numerous on 

 this coast. I once took the pains to calculate their 

 numbers. At the rate at which the fishing-canoes 

 brought them in with other fish taken in the seines 

 daily, not less than ten thousand of them must 

 be annually destroyed upon this beach alone. As 

 far as a hasty glance at the Dolphins, when sporting, 

 could be obtained with the spy-glass, they seemed 

 to me to resemble the Delphinus superciliosus of 

 Lesson in shape and size. The colour was decidedly 

 of that hue called lead-colour: blackish-blue above 

 and grey beneath. 



*' September, 1846. In my notes of a visit to 

 Passage Fort, in 1842, I noticed the Lagoon between 

 Fort Augusta and the Salinas. I spoke of it as the 

 great stock-pond of the Kingston Fish-market for 

 certain kinds of fish, and represented it as being a 

 fine lakelet, interestingly varied with mangrove islets, 

 and with clustered trees upon its borders. It is a 

 spacious piece of water of two divisions, of very 



