268 Animal Humor. | May, 
With what a rhythmical movement these monsters would gam- 
bol along in line, one huge fellow taking the lead, and every one 
behind duplicating his movements, pretty much like the play of 
boys, “ follow your leader.” These porcine mammals of the sea 
follow the migrations of the Olupide, the family of fishes in 
which the shad, menhaden or moss-bunker, herring, and others 
are found. Thus we see it especially in the spring and fall. 
As food is his object, the porpoise keeps in their wake, and that 
of the fierce and active blue-fish, Temnodon saltator. Not more 
terrified would a herd of gazelles be before a band of tigers, than 
is the moss-bunker, Alosa menhaden, when pursued by the blue- 
fish. The poor things crowd like a moving bank, compacted by 
the devouring pursuer, and the pursuer, so intent upon his vic- 
tims, is in turn pursued ; for the porpoise is pressing behind. 
Though I implicitly believe it myself, yet I did not see what I 
am about to relate. I have heard it more than once from the 
eye-witness, an intelligent and much-respected man. He had 
been commander of a coasting vessel. Said he, “ It was early 
fall, and I was running with garden stuff from Keyport to New 
York. I saw several porpoises. They were going in a line, 
much as you always see them, but the two head ones had each 
a blue-fish, with which it played as a cat does with a mouse. 
They were some distance off, and I might be mistaken about the 
height ; but each porpoise would throw up its fish high into the 
air, maybe ten or twelve feet, as nigh as I could judge. Just 
after each toss-up of the blue-fish, each porpoise would duck its 
nose, by a forward pitch of its body.” ; 
“ That was indeed surprising. Let me ask, Did each porpoise 
catch the fish when it fell ? ” 
“ That I could n’t say, but should think most like not. I think 
it picked the fish up each time. One of them I know tossed its 
fish up at least seven times in close succession, before it stopped. 
I am satisfied, too, that it was one and the same blue-fish all the 
time.” 
“ Well, well,” we thought. “Then this queer, ogreish fun is 
found among porpoises, seals, and cats! And is not this, the 
grimmest, whether among animals or men, also the lowest be 
mor ? 
In regard to Jack’s lassoing the chestnuts on the floor, I do 
not see, with an able thinker, the necessity of his inheriting the 
trick, as an achievement by some arboreal ancestor who used a 
vine or pliant twig to loop in some coveted fruit on the tree. 
