A WHALE ESCORT. 
5 
and refreshing after the burning days, and being 
generally fair, and now lighted by the moon, 
“ pura nocturno renidet 
Luna mari, ” * 
we spend them on deck, as the pleasantest hours 
of the twenty-four. This evening, the wallowing and 
sporting of the Whales added a new interest ; and at 
nearly eleven o’clock, we left them still in company. 
November 9.^d. — On rising, we were surprised to 
find the Whales still attending us. I now had an 
opportunity of seeing the profile of one very dis- 
tinctly, and of assuring myself that the form of the 
head was exactly that of the figured Deljphinorliyn- 
chus, no furrow being visible between the forehead 
and the snout. One of the officers informed me that 
he had seen one of them breach^ or leap clear out of 
the water. Soon after 8 a.m. they left us, having 
continued with us nearly seventeen hours, a period of 
extraordinary length, when we consider that the 
visits of frolicsome Cetacea to vessels rarely last more 
than half an hour or an hour. During the whole of 
this time, the ship had been running before a gallant 
breeze, and had proceeded nearly 120 English miles. 
I have little doubt that the species was that very 
interesting and rare Cetacean known as the Toothless 
Whale of Havre, DelphinorhyncJius mieropterus. The 
small size of the dorsal, and its backward position, 
agreed well with the description of that species, and 
though these were nearly double the length of that 
* Hor. Carm. ii. 5. 
