Flying Fish and their Enemies. 269 



and albacore. The poor little flying fish is their tit-bit. 

 They hunt it remorselessly, apparently enjoying the sport 

 of pursuit as keenly as the ultimate capture and final scrunch 

 of its tender bones. 



The popular estimation of the animal creation is, as we 

 know in such examples as the lion, camel, goose, owl, hare, 

 and the like, founded more upon imagination than upon 

 observation. The dolphin must be included in the list of 

 these overrated, underrated, or perhaps altogether unworthy, 

 idols. He has been made the subject of the painter's art, 

 who, for some inscrutable reason or other, has given him a 

 curl in the tail which Nature never dreamt of. Poets have 

 had a turn at him. Thus : — 



"Kind, gen'rous dolphins love the rocky shore, 

 Where broken waves with fruitless anger roar ; 

 But though to sounding shores they curious come, 

 Yet dolphins count the boundless sea their home. 

 Nay, should these favourites forsake the main, 

 Neptune would grieve his melancholy reign. 

 The calmest, stillest seas, when left by them 

 Would awful frown and all unjoyous seem ; 

 But when the darling frisks his wanton play 

 The waters smile and every wave looks gay. " 



And that warm, wicked syren Cleopatra, wishing to say 

 the very highest thing that could be said of her lord, the 

 hapless Marcus Antonius, observed that his delights were 

 dolphin-like. In the olden time the dolphin was believed 

 to be in moral nature quite a model fish. He was lauded 

 as the possessor of a big, philanthropic soul, as a fond lover 

 of the human race and notably of the weak, helpless, and 

 young. Instances, with every circumstantiality of detail, 

 were given of boys riding to school on a dolphin's back, 

 and of distressed seamen rescued from peril by the eager 



