THE DOLPHIN. 107 



The most famous member of this numerous family is un- 

 doubtedly the classical Dolphin of the ancients (Delphvnus del- 

 phis) which attains a length of from 

 nine to ten feet, and is, according to 

 Pliny, the swiftest of all animals, so 

 as to merit the appellation of the 

 " arrow of the sea." His lively 

 troops often accompany for days the Deu*n»» Delphi*. 



track of a ship, and agreeably interrupt the monotony of a long 

 sea-voyage. As if in mockery of the most rapid sailer, they 

 shoot past so as to vanish from the eye, and then return again 

 with the same lightning-like velocity. Their spirits are so 

 brisk that they frequently leap into the air, as if longing to ex- 

 patiate in a lighter fluid. Hence, dolphins are the favourites of 

 the mariner and the poet, who have vied in embellishing their 

 history with the charms of fiction. 



Everybody knows the wonderful story of Arion, who having 

 been forced by pirates to leap into the sea, proceeded merrily 

 to his journey's end on the back of a dolphin: — 



" Secure he sits, and 'with harmonious strains 

 Requites his hearer for his friendly pains. 

 The gods approve, the dolphin heaven adorns, 

 And with nine stars a constellation forms." 



Pliny relates the no less astonishing tale of a boy at Baise, who 

 by feeding it with bread, gained the affections of a dolphin, 

 so that the thankful creature used to convey him every morning 

 to school across the sea to Puteoli, and back again. When the 

 boy died, the poor disconsolate dolphin returned every morning 

 1 to the spot where he had been accustomed to meet his friend, 

 and soon fell a victim to his grief. The same naturalist tells us 

 also that the dolphins at Narbonne rendered themselves very 

 useful to the fishermen by driving the fish into their nets, and 

 were generously rewarded for their assistance with " bread soaked 

 in wine." A king of Caria having chained a dolphin in the 

 harbour, its afflicted associates appeared in great numbers, tes- 

 tifying their anxiety for its deliverance by such unequivocal 

 signs of sorrow, that the king, touched with compassion, re- 

 stored the prisoner to liberty. 



Such, and similar fables, which were believed by the na- 



