PORPOISES. 
115 
lace, whicli is lighter. They are extremely gregarious, and mild and 
inoffensive in disposition, feeding on cephalopods. Their eminently 
sociable disposition constantly leads to their destruction, as, vrhen 
attacked, they instinctively rush together and blindly follow the 
leaders of the herd. In this way many hundreds at a time are 
frequently driven ashore and killed, when a herd enters one of the 
bays or fiords of the Faroe or Shetland Islands. They are widely 
distributed. Specimens in the collection from New Zealand are 
indistinguishable from those taken in the Northern seas. 
Fig’. 54, 
Porpoise {PhoccBiia communis). 
Fig. 55. 
Skull of Porpoise. 
Phocana. P. communis, the common Porpoise, is the best known 
and most frequent Cetacean on our coasts. It and its immediate 
allies differ from all the other Del2:)hinicl(2 in the form of their 
teeth, which, instead of being conical and pointed, have compressed 
spade-shaped crowns. Its external form is well seen in the 
coloured model of an American specimen, A closely-allied form, 
Neomei'is phoccBnoides, differing mainly in the absence of dorsal 
fin, is common off the coast of Bombay, and has been met with 
in other parts of the Indian Ocean and near Japan. A specimen 
1 2 
