Oil, spermaceti, and ambergris, are supposed to be yielded in greater or less quantity from every species of cachalot.
121. The COMMON or TRUE DOLPHIN (Delphinus delphis) is a cetaceous animal nine or ten feet in length, with a row of large teeth in each jaw, and a single orifice near the top of the head; an oblong and roundish body, a fin on the back, and the snout narrow and pointed, having a broad transverse band or projection of the skin on its upper part. The body is black, with a bluish tinge above, and white below.
Dolphins are found in nearly every part of the ocean.
Few animals have had greater celebrity than these. Their activity in playing about near the surface of the ocean, their undulating motion, and the evolutions and gambols of whole shoals of them together, occasionally afford to mariners and others a very entertaining spectacle. By the ancient Greeks and Romans dolphins were supposed to entertain a kind of friendship towards mankind, and were consecrated to the gods. In cases of shipwreck they were believed to be in waiting to rescue and carry on shore the unfortunate mariners. Pliny, the Roman naturalist, was credulous enough to believe that dolphins had been rendered so tame as to allow of persons mounting on their backs, and being carried in safety over a considerable space of sea. As these animals, in their progress through the water, often assume a crooked form, in order to spring forward with the greater force, both ancient and modern artists have depicted the dolphin with its back curved.
The flesh of the dolphin is hard and insipid, yet it was formerly in repute as food even in this country. We are informed by Dr. Caius, that a dolphin which was caught, in his time, at Shoreham, in Sussex, was sent to the Duke of Norfolk, who had part of it roasted and served up at table with a sauce made of the crumbs of white bread mixed with vinegar and sugar. The tongue of the dolphin is said to be very agreeable to the taste, and to be in every respect delicate eating. The fat, which, as in other cetaceous animals, lies, for the most part, immediately beneath the skin, is not in great abundance.
It is to be remarked that seamen give the name of dolphin to another kind of animal, the Dorado (Coryphæna hippuris). The latter, however, is a genuine species of fish, and not, like the present, a warm-blooded and mammiferous animal.
122. The PORPESSE (Delphinus phocæna) is a cetaceous animal, six or seven feet in length, with a somewhat conical body, a row of pointed teeth in each jaw, a single spiracle near the top of the head, a broad fin about the middle of the back, and a short and bluntish muzzle.
Its colour is bluish black above, and white beneath, and the skin is bright, smooth, and soft to the touch.
These animals are found in the Baltic sea, near the coasts of Greenland and Labrador, in all parts of the Atlantic, and even in the Pacific Ocean.
In most of their habits the porpesses have a near resemblance to the dolphin, but they are not so active. They generally associate in troops of from six or seven to thirty and upwards in number, and feed on fish of all kinds, but particularly on such as swim in large shoals, as mackerel, herrings, and the different species of the cod.