HARBOR PORPOISES: MOVEMENTS AND HABITS. 15 



up the Saint John's in Florida to Jacksonville, and about 1850 one was taken in the Connecticut 

 at Middletown, twenty miles from brackisli water. In Europe they ascend the Thames, the Weser, 

 and other streams. 



Size and movements. — They rarely exceed four or four and a half feet in length. Every one 

 has seen them rolling and puf&ng outside of the breakers or in the harbors and river mouths. The 

 western Atlantic species swim in droves of from ten to one hundred, but Scammon says that those 

 of California are never found associated in large numbers, though six or eight are often seen together. 

 In England, according to Couch, seldom more than two are seen at once. They never spring from 

 the water like Dolphins, but their motion is a rolling one and brings the back-fin often into sight, 

 this always appearing shortly after the head has been exposed and the little puff of spray seen and 

 the accompanying grunt heard. The rolling motion is caused by the fact that to breathe through 

 the nostrils, situate on the top of the snout, they must assume a somewhat erect posture, descending 

 from which the body passes through a considerable portion of a circle. 



Repeodtjction. — The breeding season is in summer, in August and September, in Passama- 

 quoddy Bay, perhaps also at other times. The new-born young of an English Porpoise fifty-six 

 inches long, measured twenty-six inches, and was sixteen inches in circumference. 



Food. — They feed on fish, particularly on schooling species like the herring and menhaden, 

 and are responsible for an enormous destruction of useful food material. 



Uses. — Though frequently taken in the pounds and seines along both coasts and off Massa- 

 chusetts in the gill-nets set for mackerel, they are of little importance except to the Indians of 

 Maine and our Northwestern Territories, who carry on an organized pursuit of them, shooting them 

 from their canoes. This industry will be described in the chapter upon Aboriginal fishebibs. 



Destkxtctiveness. — The Porpoise is pugnacious as well as playful. A fisherman in Florida 

 told me that he once tried to pen a school of them in a little creek by anchoring his boat across its 

 entrance. When they came down the creek they sprang over the boat against the sail, through 

 which they tore their way and regained the river. A correspondent, whose name has been mislaid, 

 writes : "A very unusual event occurred at Far Rockaway on Tuesday morning, about four o'clock, 

 in front of the Nelson House. A school of Drumfish were chased into shallow water by a school 

 of Porpoises. The Drumfish tried their best to get away, but the Porpoises pursued them so hotly 

 that a number of the former were driven ashore. The people of the hotel were awakened by a 

 great splashing and a noise somewhat similar to but less distinct than the grunt of a frightened 

 hog. Looking out of the windows they saw the Porjjoises striking the Drumfish with their tails. 

 Soon after the Porpoises turned and left. The porters at the hotel and some of the fishermen 

 secured with boat-hooks about twenty-five dead Drumfish, and a large number are still floating 

 around Jamaica Bay. The Drumfish secured weighed from thirty to seventy pounds each. Some 

 were sent to Canarsie for exhibition and others to Fulton Market for sale." 



The Drum being an enemy of the Oyster, it is possible that the Porpoise by destroying them is 

 a benefactor. It would be no more curious than the experience of the Canadian Government in 

 decreasing their Salmon fishery in the St. Lawrence by destroying the White Whales which preyed 

 upon the seals, the enemies of the Salmon. The story about the Porpoises killing drum seems 

 incredible, but is supported by Sir Charles Ly ell's account of a battle between the Porpoises and the 

 Alligators in Florida : " Mr. Couper told me that in the summer of 1845 he saw a shoal of Por- 

 poises coming up to that part of the Altamaha where the fresh and salt water meet, a space about 

 a mile in length, the favorite fishing ground of the Alligators, where there is brackish water, 

 which shifts its place according to the varying strength of the river and the tide. Here were seen 

 about fifty AUigators, each with head and neck raised above water, looking down the stream at 



