BLACKFISH OF THE DOLPHIN FAMILY 147 
White ‘‘Whale”’ consists of such fish as flounders, halibut, 
cod, salmon and eels, and also of squids and prawns. In 
the St. Lawrence River there is a fishery of considerable 
importance. 
Tue BuackrisH! is not a fish, but a jet-black member 
of the Dolphin Family, 15 to 18 feet long, and is shaped very 
much like a small sperm whale. The head has the same 
square-ended, sawed-off appearance, and a barely perceptible 
snout. It is one of the most abundant and important of 
the small cetaceans of the east coast of North America. 
Thousands of them have been stranded, or deliberately 
driven into shallow water, on Cape Cod, sometimes over a 
hundred in one school. The yield of oil from a single Black- 
fish varies from ten gallons to ten barrels. The jaw yields 
a fine quality of oil much used for sewing-machines and 
known as porpoise-jaw oil. The value of a stranded Black- 
fish on Cape Cod varies from $5 to $40. (G. Brown 
Goode.) 
Once on a voyage from South America to New York, we 
sighted a large school of Blackfish, travelling south and 
playing by the way. Some chased each other, lazily, and 
half a dozen of them stood on their tails in the water, per- 
fectly erect, with their heads six or seven feet high in the air, 
as if to look at the ship. Those so standing looked like big, 
black posts, all ready for wharf-building. 
Tue Grampus, or Cow-‘Fisx,”? of our Atlantic coast 
inhabits the same waters as the preceding species, but is 
not nearly so numerous or so stupid in getting stranded in 
1 Glob-i-ceph’a-la melas. 2 Gram'pus gris’e-us. 
