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[Illustration: The Dionysos Cup by Exekias, _c._ 540 B.C.
_Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Munich. Photograph by Dr. Max
Hirmer._]
The Dolphin
in History
_Papers delivered by Ashley Montagu
and John C. Lilly at a symposium
at the Clark Library, 13 October 1962_
WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY
_University of California, Los Angeles
1963_
_Foreword_
Recently the dolphin has become the focus of much scientific interest
and investigation which have led to flattering pronouncements about its
remarkable intelligence, amiability, and astonishing friendliness
towards man. It was in consequence of such activities that a symposium
was held at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library to consider the
background to contemporary studies of the dolphin. The presentations of
Dr. Ashley Montagu and Dr. John C. Lilly were received so favorably that
it was decided to make them more widely available in the present form.
As will be readily apparent to any reader, Dr. Montagu has demonstrated
conclusively that had the writings of the ancients been heeded we should
long since have paid proper respect to this intelligent mammal, and Dr.
Lilly has reinforced such classical appreciation by an account of his
own astonishing observations of dolphin behavior. It is to be hoped that
these two accounts will contribute to a lasting appreciation of our
remarkable aquatic friend.
C.D. O’Malley
DIVISION OF MEDICAL HISTORY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES
THE HISTORY OF THE DOLPHIN
_by_ Ashley Montagu
_The friendly_ Dolphin, _while within the maine,
At libertie delightes, to sport and play,
Himselfe is fresh, and doth no whit retaine
The brinish saltnes of the boundless Sea
Wherein he lives. Such is the secret skill
Of Nature working, all thinges at her will._
Henry Peacham, _Minerva Britanna_, 1612
_The History of the Dolphin_
By ASHLEY MONTAGU
_I have met with a story, which, although authenticated by undoubted
evidence, looks very like a fable._
_Pliny the Younger_
The history of the dolphin is one of the most fascinating and
instructive in the historiography and the history of ideas in the
western world. Indeed, it provides one of the most illuminating examples
of what has probably occurred many times in human culture—a virtually
complete loss of knowledge, at least in most segments of the culture, of
what was formerly well understood by generations of men. “Not in entire
forgetfulness” in some regions of the world, but certainly in “a sleep
and a forgetting” in the most sophisticated centers of the western
world.
Dolphins are mammals. They belong in the order Cetacea, suborder
Odontoceti, family Delphinidae. Within the Delphinidae there are some
twenty-two genera and about fifty-five species. The count includes the
Killer Whale, the False Killer Whale, the White Whale, and the Pilot
Whale, all of which are true dolphins. There are two subfamilies, the
Delphinapterinae, consisting of the two genera _Monodon monocerus_, the
Narwhal, and _Delphinapterus leucas_, the White Whale or Beluga. These
two genera are distinguished by the fact that none of the neck vertebrae
are fused, whereas in all remaining genera, embraced in the subfamily
Delphininae, at least the first and second neck vertebrae are fused.
It was Aristotle in his _History of Animals_ (521b) who first classified
whales, porpoises, and dolphins as Cetacea,τὰ κήτη οῖον δελφις καὶ
φωκαὶνα καὶ φάλαινα. Aristotle’s account of the Cetacea was
astonishingly accurately written, and quite evidently from firsthand
knowledge of these animals.
While most dolphins are inhabitants of the seas, there are some that
live in rivers, and quite a few that are denizens of fresh-water rivers
removed many miles from the sea. With one exception the diet of dolphins
is principally fish. The one exception is _Sotalia teuszii_, which lives
in the Kamerun River, and is believed to feed exclusively on vegetable
matter. The Ting Ling dolphin (_Lipotes vexillifer_) lives in Ting Ling
Lake, six hundred miles up the Yang-tse-Kiang. Another dolphin, the Susu
or Ganges dolphin (_Platanista gangetica_) of Brahmapootra, the Ganges,
and the Indus, has lenseless eyes and is almost blind. The fresh-water
dolphins belong in the family Platanistidae.
It is of interest to note that, in connection with the vegetable feeding
habits of the Kamerun dolphin, Lycophron, in his _Alexandra_, makes his
dolphins feed on trees, and Ovid, in the _Metamorphoses_ (III, 1, 202),
describes a flood in which the dolphins take possession of the woods.
Nonnus Panopolitanus, in the _Dionysiaca_ (VI, 265-266), also describes
dolphins as feeding on trees.
The normal range of length of dolphins is from 5 to 14 feet; the larger
species, the whales, are considerably longer. Brain weight is between
1600 and 1700 grams in the familiar dolphins, and reaches 9200 grams and
more in the whales. The large brain is associated with what, all
observers familiar with these animals agree, is a quite considerable
intelligence.
Here we must pause to make a plea for the proper usage of common names.
The term “porpoise” refers to the small, beakless Delphinidae, which
have a triangular dorsal fin and spade-shaped teeth. The name “dolphin”
embraces all other members of the family, except the larger forms, which
are called whales. The porpoises mostly belong in the genus _Phocaena_,
the best known species of which, the Common Porpoise (_Phocaena
phocaena_), never reaches a length exceeding 6 feet and weighs 100 to
120 pounds. There are some six species. The finless black porpoise
constitutes the only other genus with a single species _Neomeris
phocaenoides_.
All porpoises are dolphins. The Bottle-Nosed Dolphin, _Tursiops
truncatus_, is sometimes called a porpoise. This is incorrect.
_Tursiops_ is a true dolphin, and should not be called what it is not.
Here we shall be principally concerned with the Bottle-Nosed Dolphin and
with the Common Dolphin. The Bottle-Nosed Dolphin has a short,
well-defined snout two or three inches long, and is characterized by a
prominent fin in the middle of the back. Coloration is dark above and
light below. Gestation lasts some ten months, birth is monotocous, and
the young are suckled for about 18 months. The tail is delivered first,
and the infant, about three feet long and weighing about twenty-five
pounds, is immediately quite active, though much in need of the care of
its devoted mother. The infant will eventually grow to be between 11 and
12 feet in length, and weigh about 300 kilograms. _Tursiops_ has an
enormously wide range, being commonest along the Atlantic coast of
America, from Maine to Florida, and occurs in the Bay of Biscay, in the
Mediterranean Sea, and as far south as New Zealand.
The Common Dolphin, _Delphinus delphis_, is readily recognized by its
well-defined narrow beak and distinctive coloration. The beak is some 5
to 6 inches narrower and finer than in the Bottle-Nosed Dolphin, and is
sharply marked off by a deep V-shaped groove from the low reclining
forehead. The Common Dolphin reaches a length up to 8½ feet. Its range
of distribution is very wide, for it may be met in any temperate or warm
sea throughout the world, and occurs at times in vast schools.
Whether the dolphin of classical antiquity is _Delphinus_ or _Tursiops_
is not usually determinable, although each undoubtedly played its
independent role in the stories told of dolphins. From the recorded
evidence available to us it is clear that, except for the larger
species, the whales, all dolphins appear to be characterized by
playfulness and friendliness toward man. There are, however, differences
which appear to express themselves mostly in captivity. At least,
_Tursiops_ adjusts much better to captivity than does _Delphinus_. At
marine studios _Tursiops_ has established itself as a highly
intelligent, playful, and friendly performer. _Delphinus_, on the other
hand, while naturally all these things, in captivity tends to be timid
and not very playful.
The Common and Bottle-Nosed Dolphins are those best known to the western
world, but many of the traits which have recently been rediscovered
concerning these creatures have been well known to other peoples for
millennia. It is only a certain segment of the western world, its more
sophisticated representation, and particularly the learned world, which
dismissed as myths the tales told about dolphins in classical antiquity.
And this is the real burden of the story I have to tell you. Some of
these antique tales may have been myths, but as we shall see, many of
them were not, and undoubtedly a number of the myths were based on real
events partially embroidered by the imagination and improved, like good
wine, by time. But good wine needs no bush, and I shall sample this wine
as palatably as I find it.
The earliest representation of a dolphin I have been able to find is
from a pictographic seal from Crete, estimated to date from 3500 to 2200
B.C. The earliest _painting_ of a dolphin thus far recovered is from the
ancient Peloponnesian city of Tiryns. The date is about 1600 B.C. In
that city it is also represented in stucco floors. Several good examples
of dolphins are furnished by seventh century Corinthian art. The dolphin
is also well represented in Minoan art. In Cyprus it is frequently
represented in Late Helladic vases, shards, amphorae, in metalwork,
engravings, and in stucco floors as at Tiryns. Among the importations
from Crete into Helladic art appear to have been certain stylized forms
of the dolphin.
An early literary reference to the dolphin occurs in Aesop’s fable, “The
Monkey and the Dolphin.” During a violent storm a ship was capsized, and
among those thrown into the water was a monkey. Observing its distress a
dolphin came to its rescue, and taking the monkey upon its back the
dolphin headed for shore. Opposite Piraeus, the harbor of Athens, the
dolphin inquired of the monkey whether he was an Athenian. “Oh, yes,”
replied the monkey, “and from one of the best families.” “Then you know
Piraeus,” said the dolphin. “Very well, indeed,” said the monkey, “he is
one of my most intimate friends.” Whereupon, outraged by so gross a
deceit, the dolphin took a deep dive and left the monkey to its fate.
I take it that ever since that day monkeys have very sensibly refrained
from speech. It is far better to remain silent even at the risk of being
taken for a fool or a rogue, than to open one’s mouth and remove all
doubt.
Aesop flourished about 600 B.C. His story suggests a considerable
knowledge of the ways of dolphins, and this indicates that knowledge of
the dolphin was already old in his time.
There are several variant Greek myths on the origin of the dolphin. All
of them relate to Dionysos. In one version Dionysos is an adult, in
another he is a child. The first group of legends represent the epiphany
of Dionysos, symbolizing the battle between winter and summer. Winter is
represented by the death of Dionysos who disappears into the water, from
which he is brought back on the top of a dolphin as the returning
springtime (Apollodorus, III, 5, 3). Another version has Dionysos,
whether as child or adult varies, being conveyed by ship to Naxos by
Tyrrhenian mariners. The latter conceive the idea of kidnaping him.
Dionysos senses their treachery, and bidding his companions strike up on
their musical instruments, he produces a Bacchic wild dance in the
mariners who throw themselves overboard and are changed into dolphins.
The popular belief in antiquity in the human intelligence of dolphins
and their kindly feeling toward man was explained by the ancient writers
in the light of the transformation of the Tyrrhenian pirates into
dolphins. (See Lucian, _Marine Dialogues_, 8; Oppian, _Halieutica_, I,
649-654, 1098, V, 422, 519f; Porphyry, _De Abstinentia_, III, 16.) As
Oppian (I, 1089) in his _Halieutica_ has it, in William Diaper’s
charming translation:
So _Dolphins_ teem, whom subject Fish revere,
And show the smiling Seas their Infant-Heir.
All other Kinds, whom Parent-Seas confine,
_Dolphins_ excell; that Race is all divine.
_Dolphins_ were Men (Tradition hands the Tale)
Laborious Swains bred on the _Tuscan_ Vale:
Transform’d by _Bacchus_, and by _Neptune_ lov’d,
They all the Pleasures of the Deep improv’d.
When new-made Fish the God’s Command obey’d,
Plung’d in the Waves, and untry’d Fins displayed,
No further Change relenting _Bacchus_ wrought,
Nor have the _Dolphins_ all the Man forgot;
The conscious Soul retains her former Thought.
The god of the golden trident who rules over the seas, Poseidon, would
not have prospered in his wooing of Amphitrite if it had not been for
the assistance of a dolphin, who apprized Poseidon of her hiding-place.
For this service, as is well-known, Poseidon set the dolphin among the
stars in the constellation which bears its name to this day.
It is interesting in this connection that in a modern Greek folktale
from Zacynthos, Poseidon changes a hero who has fallen into the sea into
a dolphin until such time as he should find a maiden ready to be his
wife. After some time the dolphin rescues a shipwrecked king and his
daughter, the princess by way of reward takes him for her husband, and
the spell is broken (Bernhard Schmidt, _Das Volksleben der Neugriechen_,
p. 135).
The cult of Apollo Delphinus was initiated, so legend has it, by Icadius
who, leaving his native land of Lycia, which he had named for his
mother, set out for Italy. Shipwrecked on the way, he was taken on the
back of a dolphin, which set him down near Mount Parnassus, where he
founded a temple to his father Apollo, and called the place Delphi after
the dolphin. For this reason the dolphin became among the things most
sacred to Apollo (Servius, _Commentarii in Vergilii Aeneidos_, III, 332;
also Cornificius Longus, _De Etymis Deorum_).
Herodotos, writing of Periander (fl. 600 B.C.) tyrant of Corinth, tells
one of the most famous of all stories of the dolphin (it is mentioned by
Shakespeare in the first act of _Twelfth Night_). “In his time,” writes
Herodotos (b. 484 B.C.), “a very wonderful thing is said to have
happened. The Corinthians and the Lesbians agree in their account of the
matter. They relate that Arion of Methymna, who, as a player on the
lyre, was second to no man living at that time, and who was, so far as
we know, the first to invent the dithyrambic measure, to give it its
name, and to conduct in it at Corinth, was carried to Taenarum on the
back of a dolphin.
“He had lived, it is said, at the court of Periander, when a longing
came upon him to sail across to Italy and Sicily. Having made rich
profits in those parts, he wanted to recross the seas to Corinth. He
therefore hired a vessel, the crew of which were Corinthians, thinking
that there was no people in whom he could more safely confide; and,
going on board, he set sail from Tarentum. The sailors, however, when
they reached the open sea, formed a plot to throw him overboard and
seize upon his riches. Discovering their design, he fell on his knees,
beseeching them to spare his life, and making them welcome to his money.
But they refused; and required him either to kill himself outright, if
he wished for a grave on the dry land, or without loss of time to leap
overboard into the sea. In this strait Arion begged them, since such was
their pleasure, to allow him to mount upon the quarter-deck, dressed in
his full costume, and there to play and sing, and promising that, as
soon as his song was ended, he would destroy himself. Delighted at the
prospect of hearing the very best singer in the world, they consented,
and withdrew from the stern to the middle of the vessel: while Arion
dressed himself in the full costume of his calling, took his lyre, and
standing on the quarter-deck, chanted the Orthian [a very high-pitched
lively and spirited song]. His strain ended, he flung himself, fully
attired as he was, headlong into the sea. The Corinthians then sailed on
to Corinth. As for Arion, a dolphin, they say, took him upon his back
and carried him to Taenarum, where he went ashore, and thence proceeded
to Corinth in his musician’s dress, and told all that had happened to
him. Periander, however, disbelieved the story, and put Arion in ward,
to prevent his leaving Corinth, while he watched anxiously for the
return of the mariners. On their arrival he summoned them before him and
asked them if they could give him any tidings of Arion. They returned
for answer that he was alive and in good health in Italy, and that they
had left him at Tarentum, where he was doing well. Thereupon Arion
appeared before them, just as he was when he jumped from the vessel: the
men, astonished and detected in falsehood, could no longer deny their
guilt. Such is the account which the Corinthians and Lesbians give; and
there is to this day at Taenarum an offering of Arion’s at the shrine,
which is a small figure in bronze, representing a man seated upon a
dolphin.” (_The History of Herodotus_, Clio, I, 23-24.)
Commenting on this tale the poet Bianor, in _The Greek Anthology_
(_Declamatory Epigrams_, 308), remarks, “So the sea presumably contains
fish whose righteousness exceeds that of mankind.”
Coins of Methymna, in Lesbos, Arion’s birthplace, show him riding a
dolphin. In one form or another the dolphin is represented on the coins
of some forty Greek cities, and doubtless most Greeks knew the reason
why.
Pliny the Elder, in his _Natural History_ (IX, 8, 24-28), writes as
follows:
“The dolphin is an animal that is not only friendly to mankind but is
also a lover of music, and it can be charmed by singing in harmony, but
particularly by the sound of the water-organ. It is not afraid of a
human being as something strange to it, but comes to meet vessels at sea
and sports and gambols round them, actually trying to race them and
passing them even when under full sail. In the reign of the late
lamented Augustus a dolphin that had been brought into the Lucrine Lake
fell marvellously in love with a certain boy, a poor man’s son, who used
to go from the Baiae district to school at Pozzuoli, because fairly
often the lad when loitering about the place at noon called him to him
by the name of Snubnose and coaxed him with bits of the bread he had
with him for the journey,—I should be ashamed to tell the story were it
not that it has been written about by Maecenas and Fabianus and Flavius
Alfius and many others,—and when the boy called to it at whatever time
of day, although it was concealed in hiding, it used to fly to him out
of the depth, eat out of his hand, and let him mount on its back,
sheathing as it were the prickles of its fin, and used to carry him when
mounted right across the bay to Pozzuoli to school, bringing him back in
similar manner, for several years, until the boy died of disease, and
then it used to keep coming sorrowfully and like a mourner to the
customary place, and itself also expired, quite undoubtedly from
longing. Another dolphin in recent years at Hippo Diarrhytus on the
coast of Africa similarly used to feed out of people’s hands and allow
itself to be stroked, and play with swimmers and carry them on its back.
The Governor of Africa, Flavianus, smeared it all over with perfume, and
the novelty of the scent apparently put it to sleep: it floated
lifelessly about, holding aloof from human intercourse for some months
as if it had been driven away by insult; but afterwards it returned and
was an object of wonder as before. The expense caused to their hosts by
persons of official position who came to see it forced the people of
Hippo to destroy it. Before these occurrences a similar story is told
about a boy in the city of Iasus, with whom a dolphin was observed for a
long time to be in love, and while eagerly following him to the shore
when he was going away it grounded on the sand and expired; Alexander
the Great made the boy head of the priesthood of Poseidon at Babylon,
interpreting the dolphin’s affection as a sign of the deity’s favour.
Hegesidemus writes that in the same city of Iasus another boy also,
named Hermias, while riding across the sea in the same manner lost his
life in the waves of a sudden storm, but was brought back to the shore,
and the dolphin confessing itself the cause of his death did not return
out to sea and expired on dry land. Theophrastus records that exactly
the same thing occurred at Naupactos too. Indeed there are unlimited
instances: the people of Amphilocus and Taranto tell the same stories
about boys and dolphins; and these make it credible that also the
skilled harper Arion, when at sea the sailors were getting ready to kill
him with the intention of stealing the money he had made, succeeded in
coaxing them to let him first play a turn on his harp, and the music
attracted a school of dolphins, whereupon he dived into the sea and was
taken up by one of them and carried ashore at Cape Matapan.”
A very similar but apparently quite independent account of these stories
is given by the younger Pliny, in his _Letters_ (IX, 23).
The elder Pliny then goes on to tell of the manner in which dolphins
assist fishermen, which corresponds closely with the accounts given by
recent observers of this cooperative activity between fishermen and
dolphins. (For accounts of these see Antony Alpers, _Dolphins_, 146 sq.)
There are numerous other stories similar to those given by the Plinys
from classical antiquity, but it is quite impossible to recount them
here.[1] What they all have in common is the friendliness of the dolphin
for human beings, their rescue of them when they were thrown into the
sea, their playfulness, especially with children, and their interest in
almost any sort of sound. All these traits came to be regarded as
mythical by later and more sophisticated ages, and Usener (_Die
Sintfluthsagen_) comments on the effect that the prevalence of these
tales had even upon the scientific thought of antiquity, making it
difficult for such thinkers as Aristotle to get away from the belief in
the dolphin’s ability to carry a rider, and in its capacity for human
feeling (Aristotle, _History of Animals_, 631a). But Aristotle was right
and Herr Usener wrong. The delightful thing about most of these myths is
that they all appear to be based on solid fact, and not on the fancies
attributed to the original narrators. Another typical modern gloss by a
highly sophisticated writer, biologically not unknowledgeable, Norman
Douglas, is the following: Commenting on the delphic mythology, he
writes, “From these and many other sources, we may gather that there was
supposed to exist an obscure but powerful bond of affection between this
animal and humanity, and that it was endowed with a certain
kindheartedness and man-loving propensity. This is obviously not the
case; the dolphin cares no more about us than cares the haddock. What is
the origin of this belief? I conjecture that the beast was credited with
these social sentiments out of what may be called poetic reciprocation.
Mankind, loving the merry gambols and other endearing characteristics of
the dolphin, which has a playful trick of escorting vessels for its own
amusement, whose presence signified fair weather, and whose parental
attachment to its offspring won their esteem—quite apart from its
fabled, perhaps real, love of music or at least of noisy sounds—were
pleased to invest it with feelings akin to their own. They were fond of
the dolphin; what more natural and becoming than that the dolphin should
be fond of them?” (_Birds and Beasts of the Greek Anthology_, p. 161.)
But Douglas was undisillusionedly wrong, and the dolphins are right, and
so is the “mankind” that believed in their friendliness. Though pleased
to see the dolphins play, it is to be regretted that Douglas did not
mind his compass and his way, for:
Had the curteous Dolphins heard
One note of his, they would have dar’d
To quit the waters, to enjoy
In banishment such melody.
John Hall, 1646.
In order to avoid any imputation that I may be attempting to play
Euhemerus[2] to the dolphin’s tale, the facts may be allowed to speak
for themselves—always remembering that facts never speak for themselves,
but are at the mercy of their interpreters. All, then, that I am
concerned to show here, by citing the contemporary evidence, is that, in
essence, the so-called myths of the ancients were based on solid facts
of observation and not, as has hitherto been supposed, on the imaginings
of mythmakers.
Let us begin with a brief account of the most recent and most thoroughly
documented story of a free-dwelling dolphin’s social interaction with
human beings. This is the story of Opo, a female _Tursiops_ that made
its appearance early in 1955 at Opononi, a small township just outside
the mouth of Hokianga Harbour, on the western side of the North Island
of New Zealand. From allowing itself at first to be rubbed with an oar
or mop carried on the fishermen’s launches, it began to glide in near
the beach among the bathers. The cheerful _putt-putt_ of a motor-launch
or of an outboard motor was an irresistible attraction for Opo, and she
would follow the boat like a dog, playing or cruising round it. If she
had an urge to wander, starting up the motor would invariably draw her
back again. Mr. Piwai Toi, a Maori farmer, who was the first to observe
Opo, writes, “She was really and truly a children’s playmate. Although
she played with grownups she was really at her charming best with a
crowd of children swimming and wading. I have seen her swimming amongst
children almost begging to be petted. She had an uncanny knack of
finding out those who were gentle among her young admirers, and keeping
away from the rougher elements. If they were all gentle then she would
give of her best.” (Antony Alpers, _The Dolphin_, pp. 228-229.)
The child the dolphin favored was a thirteen-year-old girl named Jill
Baker. At fourteen Jill wrote the following account of her experience
with Opo:
“I think why the dolphin became so friendly with me was because I was
always gentle with her and never rushed at her as so many bathers did.
No matter how many went in the water playing with her, as soon as I went
in for a swim she would leave all the others and go off side-by-side
with me. I remember on one occasion I went for a swim much further up
the beach than where she was playing, and I was only in the water a
short while when she bobbed up just in front of my face and gave me such
a fright. On several other occasions when I was standing in the water
with my legs apart she would go between them and pick me up and carry me
a short distance before dropping me again. At first she didn’t like the
feel of my hands and would dart away, but after a while when she
realized I would not harm her she would come up to me to be rubbed and
patted. She would quite often let me put little children on her back for
a moment or two.” (In Antony Alpers, _The Dolphin_, p. 229.)
Opo’s choice of the gentle Jill Baker for the rides which she gave this
thirteen-year-old, suggests not only a sensitive discrimination of the
qualities of human beings, but also that the reports of similar
incidents which have come down to us from antiquity were based on
similarly observed events. The one element in these stories which seemed
most difficult to accept, and which is so often represented in ancient
art, the boy riding on the back of a dolphin, is now removed from the
realm of fancy and placed squarely in the realm of fact. It has been
corroborated and sustained.
Mr. Antony Alpers in his book on the dolphin, and especially that part
devoted to the eyewitness accounts of Opo’s behavior, goes far toward
establishing the fact of the dolphin’s remarkable capacity for rapport
with human beings. But for those striking facts I must recommend you to
Mr. Alper’s charming book.
The dolphin’s extraordinary interest in and, what we will I am sure not
be far wrong in interpreting as, concern for human beings, is
dramatically told by George Llano in his report _Airmen Against the
Sea_. This report, written on survival at sea during the Second World
War, records the experience of six American airmen, shot down over the
Pacific, who found themselves in a seven-man raft being pushed by a
porpoise toward land. Unfortunately the land was an island held by the
Japanese. The friendly porpoise must have been surprised and hurt when
he found himself being dissuaded from his pushing by being beaten off
with the oars of the airmen.
Dr. Llano also reports that “Most observers noted that when porpoises
appeared sharks disappeared, and they frequently refer to the ‘welcome’
appearance of porpoises, whose company they preferred to that of
sharks.” This confirms all earlier reports that sharks are no match for
the dolphin kind.
Dolphins have been known to push a mattress quite empty of human beings
for considerable distances at sea. Possibly it is merely the pushing
that interests them, and not the saving of any human beings that might
be atop of them.
Is there any evidence that dolphins save drowning swimmers? There is.
In 1945 the wife of a well-known trial attorney residing in Florida was
saved from drowning by a dolphin.[3] This woman had stepped into a sea
with a strong undertow and was immediately dragged under. Just before
losing consciousness, she remembers hoping that someone would push her
ashore. “With that, someone gave me a tremendous shove, and I landed on
the beach, face down, too exhausted to turn over ... when I did, no one
was near, but in the water almost eighteen feet out a porpoise was
leaping around, and a few feet beyond him another large fish was also
leaping.”
In this case the porpoise was almost certainly a dolphin and the large
fish a fishtail shark. A man who had observed the events from the other
side of a fence told the rescued woman that this was the second time he
had seen a drowning person saved by a “porpoise.”
More recently, on the night of February 29, 1960, Mrs. Yvonne M. Bliss
of Stuart fell from a boat off the east coast of Grand Bahama Island in
the West Indies.[4] “After floating, swimming, shedding more clothing
for what seemed an eternity, I saw a form in the water to the left of
me.... It touched the side of my hip and, thinking it must be a shark, I
moved over to the right to try to get away from it.... This change in my
position was to my advantage as heretofore I was bucking a cross tide
and the waves would wash over my head and I would swallow a great deal
of water. This sea animal which I knew by this time must be a porpoise
had guided me so that I was being carried with the tide.
“After another eternity and being thankful that my friend was keeping
away the sharks and barracuda for which these waters are famous, the
porpoise moved back of me and came around to my right side. I moved over
to give room to my companion and later knew that had not the porpoise
done this, I would have been going downstream to deeper and faster
moving waters. The porpoise had guided me to the section where the water
was the most shallow.
“Shortly I touched what felt like fish netting to my feet. It was
seaweed and under that the glorious and most welcome bottom.
“As I turned toward shore, stumbling, losing balance, and saying a
prayer of thanks, my rescuer took off like a streak on down the
channel.”
The reader must be left to make what he can of such occurrences. Dr.
George G. Goodwin of the American Museum of Natural History doubts the
intention of dolphins to save drowning persons.[5] “Anything floating,”
he writes, “on or near the surface of the sea will attract his
attention. His first action on approaching the object of his curiosity
is to roll under it. In doing so, something partly submerged, like the
body of a drowning person, is nudged to the surface of the water. The
sea does its part and automatically drives floating objects toward the
beach.” This may well be so in some cases, but it is an explanation
which does not fit the incidents described by Mrs. Bliss, in which she
was not pushed but guided. Occam’s razor should not be too bluntly
applied.
The cooperativeness of dolphins with fishermen in various parts of the
world has gone on for several thousand years without its significance
having registered much upon the consciousness of the rest of the
world—including the learned and the scientific.
In the Mediterranean from the earliest days, as recorded by Aelian in
his _On the Characteristics of Animals_, VI, 15, to the present day,
torchlight fishing with the aid of dolphins has been a traditional way
of fishing. This has been described by Nicholas Apostolides in his book
_La Pêche en Grèce_, who tells how fishermen of the Sporades catch their
garfish “in the darkest nights of the month of October” by methods very
similar to those described by Aelian. Briefly, the fish attracted by the
fishermen’s flares begin to collect, whereupon the dolphins appear and
drive them into the fishermen’s nets.
Similar methods of fishing were practiced in the Antipodes, off the New
Zealand and Queensland coasts. The aborigines of Moreton Bay,
Queensland, used to catch mullet with the aid of dolphins, at a place
appropriately enough called Amity Point. The aborigines recognized
individual dolphins and called them by name. With their nets ready on
the beach the aborigines waited for a shoal of fish to appear, whereupon
they would run down and make a peculiar splashing in the water with
their spears, and the dolphins on the outside of the shoal would drive
the fish towards the nets for the aborigines to catch. Fairholme, who
described these events in 1856, writes, “For my part I cannot doubt that
the understanding is real, and that the natives know these porpoises
[actually the dolphin _Tursiops catalania_], and that strange porpoises
would not show so little fear of the natives. The oldest men of the
tribe say that the same kind of fishing has always been carried on as
long as they can remember. Porpoises abound in the bay, but in no other
part do the natives fish with their assistance.”
The Irrawaddy River dolphin is also an assistant-fisherman. John
Anderson reports that “The fishermen believe that the dolphin purposely
draws fish to their nets, and each fishing village has its particular
guardian dolphin which receives a name common to all the fellows of his
school; and it is this superstition which makes it so difficult to
obtain specimens of this Cetacean. Colonel Sladen has told me that suits
are not infrequently brought into the native courts to recover a share
in the capture of fish, in which a plaintiff’s dolphin has been held to
fill the nets of rival fishermen.” (John Anderson, _Account of the
Zoological Results of Two Expeditions to Western Yunnan_.)
The Pink-Bellied river dolphin (_Inia geoffrensis_) of the Trapajós, a
tributary of the Amazon, also helps its human friends with fishing. Dr.
F. Bruce Lamb[6] says that this dolphin, locally known as the _boto_,
“is reported to have saved the lives of helpless persons whose boats
have capsized, by pushing them ashore. None of the dreaded flesh-eating
_piranhas_ appear when a porpoise is present, for they themselves would
be eaten.” And he goes on to give an eye-witness account of fishing with
the aid of a trained dolphin. “My curiosity was aroused,” he writes, “by
the paddler, who began tapping on the side of the canoe with his paddle
between strokes and whistling a peculiar call. Asking Rymundo about
this, he startled me by casually remarking that they were calling their
_boto_, their porpoise.... As we approached the fishing grounds near the
riverbank, Rymundo lit his carbide miner’s lamp, adjusted the reflector,
chose his first harpoon, and stood up in the bow ready for action.
Almost immediately on the offshore side of the canoe about 50 feet from
us we heard a porpoise come up to blow and take in fresh air.” The
porpoise then chased the fish toward the canoe and Rymundo harpooned
them with ease.
Many ancient writers have referred to the brilliancy of the changeful
colors when the dolphin is dying. Byron makes reference to this in
“Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,”
“Parting day
Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues
With a new colour as it gasps away;
The last still loveliest, till ’tis gone, and
all is gray.”
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.
Our Elders, when their meaning was to shew
A native-speedinesse (in Emblem wise)
The picture of a Dolphin-Fish they drew;
Which, through the waters, with great swiftnesse, flies.
An Anchor, they did figure, to declare
Hope, stayednesse, or a grave-deliberation:
And therefore when those two, united are,
Its giveth us a two-fold Intimation.
For, as the Dolphin putteth us in minde,
That in the Courses, which we have to make,
Wee should not be, to slothfulnesse enclin’d;
But, swift to follow what we undertake:
So, by an Anchor added thereunto,
Inform’d wee are, that, to maintaine our speed,
Hope, must bee joyn’d therewith (in all we doe)
If wee will undiscouraged proceed.
It sheweth (also) that, our speedinesse,
Must have some staydnesse; lest, when wee suppose
To prosecute our aymes with good successe,
Wee may, by Rashnesse, good endeavors lose.
They worke, with most securitie, that know
The Times, and best Occasions of delay;
When, likewise, to be neither swift, nor slow;
And, when to practise all the speed, they may.
For, whether calme, or stormie-passages,
(Through this life’s Ocean) shall their Bark attend;
This double Vertue, will procure their ease:
And, them, in all necessities, befriend.
By Speedinesse, our works are timely wrought;
By Staydnesse, they, to passe are, safely, brought.
_From_ A Collection of Emblemes, Ancient and Moderne, by George Wither.
London, 1635. Book 2, p. 72.
_Appendix B_
Dolphins and Their Distribution
Order: CETACEA
Suborder: ODONTOCETI
Family: Delphinidae
Subfamily: Delphininae
Genus: _Delphinus_
Subfamily: Delphinapterinae
Genus: _Monodon_
Genus: _Delphinapterus_
The Suborder Odontoceti of the Order Cetacea consists of the toothed
whales, in contrast to the toothless whalebone or baleen whales, the
Mystacoceti. The whales are large dolphins or one may say that dolphins
are small whales. The members of the Odontoceti are the Dolphin,
Freshwater Dolphin, Porpoise, Sperm Whale or Cachalot, Lesser Sperm
Whale, Bottle-Nose Whale, Narwhal or Sea-Unicorn, White Whale, Pilot
Whale or Black-Fish, Killer Whale or Grampus.
_Delphinus delphis_: The Common Dolphin. It is easily recognized by its
well-defined narrow beak and distinctive coloration, being darker above
than below. There is a narrow beak, which is sharply marked off from the
low reclining forehead by a V-shaped groove. A length of up to 8½ feet
has been recorded. Range of distribution is very wide. May be met in any
temperate or warm sea throughout the world, and occurs at times in vast
schools.
_Delphinus roseiventris_: The Red-Bellied Dolphin. Moluccas and Torres
Straits, Australia; 3 feet 10 inches.
_Prodelphinus attenuatus_: Tropical and sub-tropical parts of Atlantic
Ocean; 6 feet.
_P. plagiodon_: Atlantic coast of North America from Cape Hatteras, Gulf
of Mexico; 7 feet.
_P. froenatus_: The Bridled Dolphin. Atlantic and Indian Oceans; about 6
feet.
_P. malayanus_: East Indies; more than 6 feet.
_P. coeruleoalbus_: South America, near mouth of River Plate; about 4
feet.
_P. euphrosyne_: Atlantic Ocean to South Africa; about 8 feet.
Genus _Tursiops_
_T. truncatus_: The Bottle-Nosed Dolphin. Has a short well-defined snout
2 or 3 inches long. There is a prominent fin in the middle of the back.
Reaches a length of 11 to 12 feet. Has a very wide range. Commonest
along the Atlantic coast of America from Maine to Florida. Found in Bay
of Biscay, in the Mediterranean Sea, and in New Zealand waters.
_T. abusalam_: Red Sea; 6 feet.
_T. catalania_: Indian and Australian seas.
Genus _Steno_
_S. rostratus_: The Rough-Toothed Dolphin. Long-beaked, with roughened
or furrowed teeth. Atlantic and Indian Oceans; about 8 feet.
Genus _Orcaella_
_O. brevirostris_: Irrawaddy River Dolphin. From Bay of Bengal,
Vizagapatam, Singapore, and Siam (i.e., S.E. Asia).
Genus _Lissodelphis_ or _Tursio_
_Lissodelphis_: The Right Whale Dolphin. All oceans.
Genus _Grampus_
_G. griseus_: Risso’s Dolphin. North Atlantic, Mediterranean, New
Zealand, and Cape of Good Hope; 12 to 13 feet.
Genus _Cephalorhynchus_
These are the Southern, mostly cold-water dolphins.
_C. heavisidei_: Heaviside’s Dolphin. Cape of Good Hope; about 4 feet.
_C. hectori_: Hector’s Dolphin. New Zealand; about 6 feet.
_C. albiventris_: White-Bellied Dolphin. A very rare form, found off the
coast of South America; about 4 feet 6 inches.
_C. commersonii_: Commerson’s Dolphin; also known as the Piebald
Porpoise or Le Jacobite. Southern oceans; up to 5¼ feet.
Genus _Lagenorhynchus_
Characterized by great number of vertebrae (80 to 90), great length of
transverse and vertical bony processes from vertebrae, moderately
pointed high back fin having concave posterior border; the beak is
short.
_L. acutus_: The White-Sided Dolphin. North Atlantic; about 9 feet.
_L. australis_: Peale’s Porpoise. Cape Horn, Chile, Patagonia, Falkland
Islands; over 7 feet.
_L. albirostris_: The White-Beaked Dolphin. North Atlantic; 9 to 10
feet.
_L. cruciger_: South Pacific; 5 to 6 feet.
_L. fitzroyi_: Fitzroy’s Dolphin. Southern end of South America; 5 feet
4 inches.
_L. obscurus_: Dusky Dolphin. South Africa, New Zealand, Falkland
Islands; 7 feet.
Genus _Sotalia_
Concentrated in the tropical seas or rivers of South America, Africa,
India, and the Far East.
_S. pallida_: Buffeo blanco. Upper Amazon; 5 feet 6 inches.
_S. fluviatalis_: Buffeo negro. Upper Amazon; 3 feet 7 inches.
_S. tucuxi_: Upper Amazon.
_S. guianensis_: N. E. coast of South America.
_S. teuszii_: Noteworthy as being the one Cetacean believed to feed
exclusively on vegetable matter. Kamerun River.
_S. gadamu_: Vizagapatam; averages 7 feet; snout 6 inches.
_S. lentigiosa_: Vizagapatam.
_S. plumbea_: Malabar coast of India; about 8 feet; very long snout.
_S. borneensis_: Gulf of Siam to Sarawak in Borneo.
_S. sinesis_: Chinese White Dolphin.
The Fresh Water Dolphins.
Genus _Platanista_
_P. gangetica_: The Susu or Gangetic Dolphin; about 8 feet; snout and
beak drawn into long forceps-like beak, 7 or 8 inches long; confined to
River Ganges and River Indus. It is almost blind.
Genus _Inia_
_I. geoffrensis_: Amazonian Dolphin or Boutu. Upper Amazon; 7 feet; long
beak.
Genus _Pontoporia_
_P. blainvillei_: La Plata Dolphin. Estuary of Rio de la Plata; about 5
feet.
Genus _Lipotes_
_L. vexillifer_: Chinese River Dolphin. Ting Ling Lake, 600 miles up the
Yang-tse River; 7 feet 6 inches; slightly upcurved jaws.
The Porpoise
The small beakless Delphinidae, which have a triangular dorsal fin and
spade-shaped teeth, black above and white below; travels in large
schools. The word “porpoise” is derived from the French _porc-poisson_,
“pig-fish.” Never larger than 6 feet.
Genus _Phocaena_
_P. phocaena_: The Common Porpoise. Chiefly North Atlantic and North
Pacific; never larger than 6 feet.
_P. spinipinnis_: Burmeister’s Porpoise. Rare. La Plata round Horn to
Peru.
_P. dalli_: Dall’s Harbor Porpoise. Very rare. Alaska; less than 5 feet.
_P. truei_: True’s Porpoise. Japan; less than 5 feet.
_P. dioprica_: River Plate to South Georgia.
Genus _Neomeris_
_N. phocaenoides_: Finless Black Porpoise. Cape of Good Hope to Japan.
Genus _Lissodelphis_
_L. peronii_: New Zealand and Tasmania; about 6 feet.
_L. brealis_: North Pacific; about 8 feet.
The Right Whale Dolphins
The Whales with Teeth
The toothed whales are big dolphins, and are on the average much smaller
than the Whalebone or Baleen toothless Whales.
Family Physeteridae
Subfamily Physeterinae
Genus _Physeter_
_P. catodon_: The Sperm Whale or Cachalot. All oceans. Male may reach 60
feet, the female usually half the length of the male. This is the whale
that has suffered the relentless persecution of whalers, always a
coveted prize on account of its spermaceti-permeated blubber, and its
excretory ambergris. The most dangerous of whales.
Subfamily Kogiinae
Genus _Kogia_
_K. breviceps_: The Pigmy or Lesser Sperm Whale. Atlantic, Pacific,
Indian, and Antarctic oceans; about 10 feet.
Family Ziphiidae
Genus: _Hyperoödon rostratus_: The Bottle-Nose Whale. North Atlantic,
Mediterranean, South Pacific, and Antarctic; 20 to 30 feet.
Genus: _Mesoplodon_: “The Cow Fish;” Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian
oceans.
Genus: _Ziphius_: The Two-Toothed Whale. All oceans.
Genus: _Tasmacetus_: South Pacific.
Genus: _Berardius_: Pacific.
Family Monodontidae or Delphinapteridae
Subfamily Delphinapterinae
Genus: _Monodon monocerus_: Narwhal or Sea Unicorn. Arctic seas south of
the ice-field. The male is characterized by an immense tusk, sometimes 9
feet long, projecting like a spear from the left side of the
bluntly-rounded muzzle. The tusk is spirally grooved, and is the source
of the horn of the unicorn of heraldry. Mottled in color, and about 18
feet long.
Genus: _Delphinapterus leucas_: The White Whale or Beluga. Resembles the
Narwhal in size, shape, and habitat, but the tusk is absent.
Family Delphinidae
Genus _Globiocephala_
_G. melas_: Pilot Whale or Black-Fish or Ca’ing Whale. Temperate or
tropical seas. Rounded head with dorsal fin. Takes its name from the
fact that one whale or pilot leads the way of the sometimes huge
schools; about 25 feet.
Genus _Orcinus_