Here is a peculiar confusion, for this is not the mammalian dolphin of which we have been speaking, but the swift piscivorous oceanic fish Coryphaena hippurus, the dolphin of sailors. It is blue with deeper spots, and gleaming with gold. It is, indeed, famous for the beauty of its changing colors when dying. The mammalian dolphin exhibits no such spectacular color changes when dying.
Happily, it is not with dying dolphins or with their changing colors that we are concerned here, but rather with ours, the changing color of the complexion of our once too sophisticated beliefs. Beliefs which, in their own way, were very much more in the nature of myths than the ancient ones which we wrote off a little too disdainfully as such. The history of the dolphin constitutes an illuminating example of the eclipse of knowledge once possessed by the learned, but which was virtually completely relegated to the outermost fringes of mythology during the last eighteen hundred years. Perhaps there is a moral to be drawn here. If so, I shall leave it to others to draw. But now that scientific interest in the dolphin has been aroused we are entering into a new era of delphinology, and with the confirmation of so many of the observations of the ancients already made, we may look forward with confidence to others. Dolphins have large brains; possibly they will some day be able to teach us what brains are really for.
Appendix A
A Note for Bibliophiles
It was an ancient belief, as Camerarius tells us, that “when tempests arise, and seamen cast their anchor, the dolphin, from its love to man, twines itself round it, so that it may more safely lay hold of the ground.” I know of no verifying evidence for this statement, but should not be surprised to find some element of truth in it. The dolphin twined about an anchor is the device which Aldus Manutius (1450-1515) adopted for his Aldine Press, which began publication in 1494. This device was later adapted to his own use by the English publisher William Pickering (1796-1854).
The representation of the dolphin twined about the anchor refers to no maritime supremacy of that creature, but rather to its kindly regard for man. The following poem in George Wither’s A Collection of Emblemes (1635), throws some additional light on the meaning of the emblem.
If Safely, thou desire to goe,
Bee nor too Swift, nor overslow.
[Emblem]
[Dolphin and Anchor]
Illvstr.X. Book 2.