SEALS AND WHALES OF TLLE BRLTISH SEAS. 123 



afford a striking example of how the unrestrained imagination of the ancients 

 could raise the most gorgeous structures of poetry and religion upon the most 

 slender basis .... It requires some stretch of the imagination to identify 

 the round-headed creature which is represented in ancient coins and statues, 

 with the straight sharp-beaked animal," which is here figured. It is sad to 

 destroy at one fell swoop all the romance which once surrounded this species ; 

 but Dr. Gray tells us that "the dying Dolphin's changing hues" are not 

 observed in a cetacean at all, but in a fish of the genus Coryphcena, which, 

 although normally black, is stated by Mr. Couch (as quoted by Mr. Yarrell) 

 to have changed to a fine blue whilst he was making a drawing of it. The 

 food of the Dolphin consists of fish, cuttlefish, and crustaceans, and on the 

 Cornish coast it makes its appearance in considerable numbers, according to 

 Mr. Couch, in the month of September during the pilchard season. It is very 

 social in its habits, and even more sportive in the water than its relative, the 

 Porpoise. The illustration is copied from Reinhardt's figure. 



Professor Flower thus describes a specimen taken in March, 1879, ^t 

 Mevagessey : "Instead of being simply black above and white below, as 

 usually described, the sides were shaded, mottled, and streaked with various 

 tints of yellow and grey, .... the under surface was of the purest possible 

 white; perfect symmetry was shown in the colouring and markings on the 

 two sides of the body."* There is, probably, much variation in the disposal 

 of the colour ; in a beautiful drawing, in my possession, made by Mr. 

 Gatcombe from a specimen taken at Plymouth, the colour is so disposed as to 

 show two graceful waving lines, crossing each other about the centre of the 

 animal's body, forming a figure somewhat like an elongated figure eight. 

 The dental formulae vary from {J J} |§ to IJ} i{J, the numbers not always being 

 equal, even on the different sides of the mouth of the same individual. The 

 length is from 5 to 8 feet. 



* Trans. Zool. Soc, vol. .\i., p. 2, with plate. 



