This animal usually swims in troops, and its motions in the water are
performed with such wonderful rapidity, that the French sailors call it
_la fleche de la mer_, or the sea-arrow. St. Pierre, in his "Voyage to
the Isle of France," assures us that he saw a dolphin swim with
apparent ease round the vessel in which he was sailing, though it was
going at the rate of about six miles an hour. A shoal of dolphins
followed the ships of Sir Richard Hawkins upwards of a thousand
leagues. They were known to be the same, from the wounds they
occasionally received from the sailors. They are greedy of almost any
kind of scraps that are thrown overboard, and consequently are often
caught by means of large iron hooks, baited with pieces of fish and
garbage.
The bounding and gambolling of dolphins has attracted the attention of
writers and poets in all ages, and is described as being extremely
beautiful.
The ancients believed that dolphins attended all cases of shipwreck,
and transported the mariners in safety to the shore. Piroetes, having
made captive Arion, the poet, at length determined on throwing him
overboard; and it is said that he escaped in safety to the shore on the
back of a dolphin.