15 



here, for its range is said to have been as far south as the Caro- 

 linas. Wapiti is an Indian word. 



This brings us to our deer {Cariacus Virginianus), the Virginian 

 or white-tailed deer. It was very common in Connecticut, and 

 may still stray into our borders from Barnstable County, Mass., 

 where it is still found wild. Much of the. clothing of our ancestors 

 was made from deer skins. When our statutes were revised in 

 1786, an act providing stringent penalties against the killing of 

 these animals (especially such as were within any of the " parks " 

 reserved for their protection) was passed. 



This concludes our list of four-footed and wing-handed mam- 

 mals, and brings us to the pinnipeds or fin-footed mammals, 

 voracious feeders on fish. Most common of these is the harbor 

 seal, Phoca vitulina. We have them in Long Island Sound. One 

 was brought thence a few years since and kept in our Garden 

 street reservoir for some weeks. He finally escaped, and had 

 nearly reached Park River, by way of Gulley Brook, when he was 

 recaptured, taken to the Sound, and there liberated. It may be 

 said that our adventurers who hunted the fur-seal in far southern 

 and far northern waters, took their first lessons in seal-catching by 

 hunting hair-seals in our own waters. Hair-seal caps were once 

 much in vogue. 



Lindsley included the hooded (or bladder-nosed) seal, as one 

 of our animals, but whether it still abides with us I cannot say. 



Of the cetacean mammals, such as whales, porpoises, etc., I 

 can say but little. They were so common in the Sound as to 

 become the subject of legislation in 1647. It was then enacted 

 that, " Yf Mr. Whiting, with any others, shall make tryall and 

 prosecute a design for the taking of Whales, within these libertyes, 

 and if upon tryall within the term of two years, they shall like to 

 goe on, noe others shall be suffered to interrupt them, for the 

 tearme of seaven yeares." Miss Caulkins quotes from Hemp- 

 stead's Diary, under date of January 13, 1748, " Comfort Davis hath 

 hired-my whale boat to go a whaling to Fisher's Island, till the 

 29th of next month ; to pay twenty shillings for her hire," etc. I 

 suppose these were what is called, in whalers' language, " right " 

 whales, Balcena mysticetus j but Linsley credits us with having had 

 the sperm whale, Pliyseter macrocephalus, and the rorqual, otherwise 

 known as the fin-back, and beaked whale. A right whale, taken 

 into Montauk, yielded sixty barrels of oil. 



Lastly, there are the porpoises, etc., of the dolphin family. 

 These are all mammals ; but the vividly brilliant dolphin is not 

 mammalian, but a true fish. Of the mammalian dolphins, Linsley 

 mentions, for Connecticut, the common porpoise, or puffing-pig, 

 the social whale, the sea porpoise ; possibly, the narwhal, or sea 



