The Dugong, Manatees, Whales, Porpoises, and Dolphins 335 



like many of 

 teeth in either 

 voracious feeder. 



i 



riiolo hg A. S. liadluad i So/ls. 



' BOTTLE-XOSED DOLPIIIX. 

 From S to 9 feet long, fonud from the .Mediterrari<;an to the North Sea. 



its grou[), 

 jaw, is a 

 preying in 

 estuaries on sahnon and 

 flounders, and on more open 

 parts of the coast on pileliards 

 and mackerel. It is occasion- 

 ally a serious nuisance in 

 the ]\lediterranean sardine- 

 fisheries, and I have known 

 of the fishermen of Collioure, 

 in the Gulf of Lyons, appeal- 

 ing to the French Govern- 

 ment to send a gunboat from 

 Toulon that might steam after 

 the marauders and frighten 

 them away. One of the most 

 remarkable cases of a feeding 

 porpoise that I can recall was that of one which played with a conger-eel in a Cornish harlionr 

 as a cat might play with a mouse, blowing the fish 20 or 30 feet through the air, and 

 swimming after it so ra[>idly as to catch it again almost as it touched the water. 



The Dolphin, which is in some seasons as common in the British Channel as the more 

 familiar porpoise, is distinguished by its small head and long beak, the lower jaw always 

 carrying more teeth than the upper. It feeds on pilchards and mackerel, and, like the piorpoises, 

 gambols, particularly after an east wind, with its fellows close inshore. There are many other 

 marine mammals somewhat loosely bracketed as doljAins. Eisso's Dolphin, for instance, a rare 

 visitor to our coasts, has a striped skin, and its jaws are without teeth, which distinguish it 

 from the common dolphin and most of the others. It cannot therefore feed on fishes, and 

 most probably eats squid and cuttle-fish. The BoxTLE-xosEn Dolphin, a species occurring in 

 the greatest numbers on the Atlantic coast of North America, is regularly hunted for its oil. 

 Heavyside's Dolphin, which hails from South African waters, is a smaller kind, chiefly remarkable 

 for the curious distribution of black and white on its back and sides. 



A word must, in conclusion, be said on the economic value of the whales. Fortunately, as 

 they are getting rarer, substitutes for their once invaluable products are being from time to time 

 discovered, and much of the regret at their extermination by wasteful slaughter is sentimental 

 and not economic. For whalebone it is not probable that a perfect substitute will ever be 

 found. It therefore maintains a high price, though the former highest market value of over 

 £2,000 per ton has fallen to something nearer the half. The sperm-oil from the sperm-whale, 



and the train-oil from that 

 of the right-whales, the sper- 

 maceti out of the cachalot's 

 forehead and the ambergris 

 secreted in its stomach, are 

 the other valuable products. 

 Ambergris is a greyish, fatty 

 secretion, caused by the irri- 

 tation set up in the whale's 

 inside by the undigested beaks 

 of cuttle-fish. Its market 

 Photo by A. s. liadiand ^ Hans. pricB is about £5 per ounce. 



heavyside's dolphin. a lump of 240 lbs. sold for 



A small, peculiarly coloured species from the Cape. nearly £20,000. 



