380 CHAPTERS ON THE NATURAL HISTORY 



Glancing again at our List above we find that these Cetaceans 

 are primarily divided into Families of toothed whales, bottle- 

 nose WHALES, SPERM WHALES, and WHALEBONE WHALES. Among 



the first of these we find the Common Dolphin (see Fig. 93) (D. 

 del phi*), and who that has ever been out for an ocean voyage 

 over the seas that he inhabits, does not know him. Suddenly a 

 " school " of them will appear under the very bows of your ves- 

 sel, plunging in and out of the water in graceful curves, and in a 

 manner most fascinating to the observer, who never wearies of 

 the sight. Their powerful, tooth-armed beaks are the very terror 

 of the small fishes upon which they habitually prey, and it is an 

 extraordinary thing to see the agility with which they effect 

 such captures. 



Captain Scammon, speaking of the Common Porpoise of the 

 Pacific coast, says, " They are seen in numbers varying from a 

 dozen up to many hundreds tumbling over the surface of the sea, 

 or making arching leaps, plunging again on the same curve, or 

 darting high and falling diagonally sidewise upon the water 

 with a spiteful splash, accompanied by a report which may be 

 heard at some distance. In calm weather they are seen in num- 

 erous shoals, leaping, plunging, lobtailing and finning, while the 

 assemblage moves swiftly in various directions. They abound 

 more along the coasts where small fish are found. Occasion- 

 ally a large number of them will get into a school of fish, frighten 

 them so much that they lose nearly all control of their move- 

 ments, while the Porpoises fill themselves to repletion." This 

 species is the L. obliquidens of our List. On our New England 

 coast the best known form is the " Skunk porpoise,'' shown in 

 Fig. 94 of the present chapter, and its habits are fully as interest- 

 ing as those of the Dolphin of which we have just been speaking. 

 Even at the present time, it is by no means a rare thing to dis- 

 cover a new species of this group, and undoubtedly there still 

 remain a number of forms as yet unknown to science. 



The Orcas or Killer whales constitute another genus of this 

 family, and they are only too well known to the whalemen as the 

 veriest wolves of the high seas, often robbing them of their hard- 

 earned spoils. They are possessed of enormous strength and 

 speed, and even at a distance at sea they can be easily recognized 

 by their lofty dorsal fins, an appendage which, in the High-finned 

 killer, attains to the enormous height of six feet. These merci- 

 less animals will ravenonslv attack and kill the biggest whale 



