THE CAVALLY AND OTHER CARANGOIDS. 
2 35 
rapid swimmers, and are widely distributed throughout all temperate and 
tropical waters. The name Dolphin is unfortunately applied, this being 
the peculiar property of a group of small cetaceans. They are often 
caught by sailors at sea, and are considered most excellent food. It is an 
almost universal custom before eating them to test the flesh by putting a 
piece of silver into the vessel in which they have been cooked, it being a 
common belief that if the flesh is poisonous the silver will turn dark. 
Narratives of ocean voyages abound in descriptions of the beautiful colors 
of the Dolphin and the brilliant changes of hue exhibited by the dying 
fish, but none so eloquent as that in Montgomery’s “Pelican Island.” 
A shoal of dolphins, tumbling in wild glee, 
Glowed with such orient tints, they might have been 
The rainbow’s offspring, where it met the ocean.” 
There are in the Atlantic two species of Dolphins, though the num¬ 
ber was, until lately, supposed to be very much greater. But one of these, 
Coryplicena hippurus , is definitely known from our shores. 
The young, less than two feet in length, are beautifully marked with 
numerous small circular spots, and have, until lately, been considered by 
many writers to belong to a distinct genus and species. Dolphins are 
abundant also, it is said, in the Gulf of Mexico. 
The Pilot-fish, Naucrates ductor , though of little or no economic im¬ 
portance, deserves passing mention, since it is so frequently referred to in 
literature. It is occasionally taken on our coast. Capt. Atwood 
mentions a specimen which was taken in a mackerel net in Provincetown 
Plarbor, in October, 1858. A whale-ship had come in a few days before,, 
and he supposes that the Pilot-fish had followed it into the harbor. 
