260 
NATURAL HISTORY 
fish could escape them, but from the awkward position 
of their mouth, which is placed in a manner under the 
head; and their agility is so great as to prevent them 
from being often taken. They seldom remain a moment 
above water, though their too eager pursuit after prey 
sometimes exposes them to danger. 
A shoal of dolphin will frequently attend the course 
of a ship for the scraps that are thrown overboard, or 
the barnacles adhering to their sides. They inhabit the 
European and Pacific ocean. 
The flesh, though tolerably well tasted, is dry and 
insipid: the best parts are near the head. It is seldom 
eaten but when young and .ender. Dolphins are said 
to change their colour before they die, and again after 
they are dead. 
Porpus. ( ' Delphinus Phocotna, PI. 44.) The gene- 
ral form of the porpus very much resembles that of the 
dolphin. It is however somewhat less in size, and has 
a snout much broader and shorter. It is generally from 
six to seven feet in length; its body is thick towards the 
head, but grows slender towards the tail, forming the 
figure of a cone. In each jaw are forty eight teeth, 
small, sharp-pointed, and moveable; and so placed that 
the teeth of one jaw look into those of the other. The 
eyes are small; as is the spout-hole at the top of the 
head. In colours the back is black, and the belly is whit- 
ish, but they sometimes vary. — -Porpuses are very nu- 
merous in all the British seas, but more particularly in 
the river St. Lawrence, in America; where there is a 
white kind. 
These animals live chiefly on the smaller fish; at the 
season when mackerel, herrings, pilchards, and salmon 
appear, the porpuses swarm; and such is its violence in 
pursuit of its prey, that it will follow a shoal of small 
fish up a fresh water river, from whence it finds a diffi- 
culty to return. These creatures have been often taken 
in the river Thames, both above and below London- 
bridge; and it is curious to observe with what dexterity 
they avoid their pursuers, and how momentarily they re- 
