240 The Dolphin 



amazingly beautiful tints and shadings of a flock of 

 humming birds can vie with the marvellous splendour 

 of this wonderful fish. 



A cursory examination would lead one to suppose 

 that the Dolphin was a scaleless fish, as indeed is 

 nearly true of the mackerel, with which the Dolphin 

 has undoubtedly some affinity. But a little search 

 will show that minute scales do exist all over the body, 

 covered by a fine skin, and that around the shoulders 

 the scales are fairly large and thickly set, so thickly 

 indeed that in removing them it is possible to run the 

 fingers beneath them, and tear off several square inches 

 at a time, in a large specimen. And quite close to the 

 head the scales blend in so closely with the bony plates 

 of the skull that, if sufficient force be used, some of the 

 latter may be torn off without being separated from the 

 scale-sheets. 



Like most other sea fish, the Dolphin has a medial 

 line extending from the middle of the head to the fork 

 of the tail, but unlike all the Scombridae or true mackerel 

 family, this line is not composed as to its posterior 

 third of horny conical processes like rudimentary 

 armour, but is merely a dark line drawn as if with a 

 lead pencil, as in the whiting, haddock, and cod. Ana- 

 tomically this line is an elongation of the fifth nerve 

 of the brain, but its use who can tell ? It is probably 

 a survival of some elaborate organ which had lost its 

 usefulness, and so became atrophied and disappeared 

 according to Nature's inexorable decrees. 



The fins of this elegant fish are in keeping with 

 his other beauties. On his back, from the crown of 

 his head to within two or three inches of his tail, he 

 wears a dorsal fin half as wide as his body. In colour 

 it is burnished yeUow gold, and its contrast with the 

 dazzling peacock blue of the back immediately 



