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in favour of these animals, particularly the dolphin, it is not easy to account for. Historians and philosophers seem to have contended who should invent the greatest number of fables concerning them. The dolphin was celebrated in the earliest times for its fondness to the human race, and was distinguished by the epithets of the boy-loving, and philanthropist. Scarcely an accident could happen at sea, but the dolphin offered himself to convey the unfortunate to shore. The musician flung into the sea by pirates, the boy taking an airing into the midst of the sea, and returning again in safety, were obliged to the dolphin for its services. It is not easy I say, to assign a cause why the ancients should thus have invented so many fables in their favour. The figure of these animals is far from prejudicing us in their interest; their extreme rapacity tends still less to endear them: I know nothing that can reconcile them to man, and excite his prejudices, except that when taken they sometimes have a plaintive moan, with which they continue to express their pain till they expire. This, at first, might have excited human pity, and that might have produced affection. At present, these fishes are regarded even by the vulgar in a very different light: their appearance is far from being esteemed a favourable omen by the seamen; and from their boundings, springs, and frolics in the water, experience has taught the mariners to prepare for a storm.

But it is not to one circumstance only that the ancients have confined their fabulous reports concerning these animals; as from their leaps out of their element they assume a temporary curvature, which is by no means their natural figure in the water, the old painters and sculptors have universally drawn them wrong. A dolphin is scarcely ever exhibited by the ancients in a straight shape, but curv

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ed, in the position which they sometimes appear in when exerting their force; and the poets too have adopted the general error. Even Pliny, the best naturalist, has asserted, that they instantly die when taken out of the water; but, Rondelet, on the contrary, assures us, that he has seen a dolphin carried alive from Montpelier to Lyons.

The moderns have more just notions of these animals, and have got over the many fables, which every day's experience contradicts. Indeed their numbers are so great, and, though shy, they are so often taken, that such peculiarities, if they were possessed of any, would have been long since ascertained. They are found, the porpoise especially, in such vast numbers, in all parts of the sea that surrounds this kingdom, that they are sometimes noxious to seamen, when they sail in small vessels. In some places they almost darken the water as they rise to take breath, and particularly before bad weather, are much agitated, swimming against the wind, and tumbling about with unusual violence.

Whether these motions be the gambols of pleasure, or the agitations of terror, is not well known. It is most probable that they dread those seasons of turbulence, when the lesser fishes shrink to the bottom, and their prey no longer offers in sufficient abundance. In times of fairer weather, they are seen herding together, and pursuing shoals of various fish with great impetuosity. Their method of hunting their game, if it may be so called, is to follow in a pack, and thus give each other mutual assistance. At that season, when the mackerel, the herring, the salmon, and other fish of passage, begin to make their appearance, the cetaceous tribes are seen fierce in the pursuit; urging their prey from one creek or bay to another, deterring them from the shallows, driving them towards each other's ambush,

and using a greater variety of arts than hounds are seen to exert in pursuing the hare. However, the porpoise not only seeks for prey near the surface, but often descends to the bottom in search of sandeels and sea-worms, which it roots out of the sand with its nose, in the manner hogs harrow up the fields for food. For this purpose, the nose projects a little, is shorter and stronger than that of the dolphin; and the neck is furnished with very strong muscles, which enable it the readier to turn up the sand.

But it sometimes happens, that the impetuosity, or the hunger of these animals, in their usual pursuits, urges them beyond the limits of safety. The fishermen, who extend their long nets for pilchards on the coast of Cornwall, have sometimes an unwelcome capture in one of these. Their feeble nets, which are calculated only for taking smaller prey, suffer an universal laceration from the efforts of this strong animal to escape; and if it be not knocked on the head, before it has had time to flounder, the nets are destroyed, and the fishery interrupted. There is nothing, therefore, they so much dread as the entangling a porpoise; and they do every thing to intimidate the animal from approaching.

Indeed, these creatures are so violent in the pursuit of their prey, that they sometimes follow a shoal of small fishes up a fresh-water river, from whence they find no small difficulty to return. We have often seen them taken in the Thames at London, both above the bridges and below them. It is curious enough to observe with what activity they avoid their pursuers, and what little time they require to fetch breath above the water. The manner of killing them is for four or five boats to spread over the part of the river in which they are seen, and with firearms to shoot at them the instant they rise above

the water. The fish being thus for some time kept in agitation, requires to come to the surface at quicker intervals, and thus affords the marksmen more frequent opportunities.

When the porpoise is taken it becomes no inconsiderable capture, as it yields a very large quantity of oil: and the lean of some, particularly if the ani mal be young, is said to be as well tasted as veal. The inhabitants of Norway prepare, from the eggs found in the body of this fish, a kind of caviar, which is said to be very delicate sauce, or good when even eaten with bread. There is a fishery for porpoise along the Western Isles of Scotland during the summer season, when they abound on that shore; and this branch of industry turns to good advantage.

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As for the rest, we are told that these animals go with young ten months; that, like the whale, they seldom bring forth above one at a time, and that in the midst of summer; that they live to a considerable age, though some say not above twenty-five or thirty years; and they sleep with the snout above water. They seem to possess, in a degree proportioned to their bulk, the manners of whales; and the history of one species of cetaceous animals will, in a great measure, serve for all the rest.

PART II. C

OF CARTILAGINOUS FISHES.

CHAPTER I.

OF CARTILAGINOUS FISHES IN GENERAL.

WE have seen that fishes of the cetaceous kind bear a strong resemblance to quadrupeds in their conformation; those of the cartilaginous kinds are one remove separated from them; they form the shade that completes the imperceptible gradations of nature.

The first great distinction they exhibit is, in having cartilages or gristles instead of bones. The cetaceous tribes have their bones entirely resembling those of quadrupeds, thick, white, and filled with marrow; those of the spinous kind, on the contrary, have small slender bones; with points resembling thorns, and generally solid throughout. Fishes of the cartilaginous kinds have their bones always soft and yielding; and age, that hardens the bones of other animals, rather contributes still more to soften theirs. The size of all fishes increases with age; but from the pliancy of the bones in this tribe, they seem to have no bound placed to their dimensions; and it is supposed that they grow larger every day till they die.

They have other differences more obviously discernible. We have observed, that the cetaceous tribes had lungs like quadrupeds, a heart with its partition in the same manner, and an apparatus for

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