SEALS AND WHALES OF THE BRLTLSH SEAS. 121 



out at right angles to it, so as to offer a resistance to the water, and so arrest 

 the onward motion of the animal. All this, although perfectly understood in 

 theory before, strikes the beholder as a new and beautiful sight when first 

 viewed in practice, from a stand-point, on a level with the animal itself, and 

 as it were in its own element. 



The food of the Porpoise consists of fish, and it follows the shoals of 

 herrings, &c., amongst which it commits great depredations ; it has a taste for 

 salmon, and is sometimes taken in the salmon-nets. The period of gestation 

 is said to be six months, and it brings forth one young one at a birth ; its 

 colour is black on the back, shaded oft' to silver-grey on the belly, the whole 

 skin beautifully smooth and polished. The teeth number about twenty-five 

 on each side of either jaw, and are spatulate, with a contracted neck, unlike 

 the usually conical teeth of the DelphinidcE. The length is four or five feet. 

 The flesh of the Porpoise seems formerly to have been esteemed as an article 

 of food, and is mentioned several times in the L'Estrange Household Book 

 (1519 to 1578) and other similar records; it is said by one who has eaten 

 it to be "excellent meat, dark in colour, and large in fibre, but of excellent 

 flavour, very tender, and full of gravy." 



THE COMMON DOLPHIN. 



The Common Dolphin {Delphinus ddphis, Linn.), fig. 27, is not unfre- 

 quently met with in the seas surrounding the southern portion of the British 

 Isles ; but from the northern division of the kingdom, although it, doubtless, 

 occasionally visits Scottish waters, there is no reliable record of its occurrence. 

 This species, probably, often passes unrecognized. It may, however, be at 

 once distinguished from the Porpoise by its attenuated beak, the head of the 



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