. The seals and whales of the British seas. e seas surrounding the southern portion of the BritishIsles ; but from the northern division of the kingdom, although it, doubtless,occasionally visits Scottish waters, there is no reliable record of its species, probably, often passes unrecognized. It may, however, be atonce distinguished from the Porpoise by its attenuated beak, the head of the o SEALS AND WHALES OF THE BRITLSH SEAS. Porpoise being obtuse, and tlie beak altogether absent. It is a native of thetemperate seas, and becomes scarcer as the north is approached. VanBeneden
. The seals and whales of the British seas. e seas surrounding the southern portion of the BritishIsles ; but from the northern division of the kingdom, although it, doubtless,occasionally visits Scottish waters, there is no reliable record of its species, probably, often passes unrecognized. It may, however, be atonce distinguished from the Porpoise by its attenuated beak, the head of the o SEALS AND WHALES OF THE BRITLSH SEAS. Porpoise being obtuse, and tlie beak altogether absent. It is a native of thetemperate seas, and becomes scarcer as the north is approached. VanBeneden was not able to record it as frequenting the Belgian coast, butLilljeborg says it is occasionally obtained on the coasts of Scandinavia, andHerr Collett has hardly any doubt that it occurs on the Norwegian coast as farnorth as Finmarken, and a large school, seen by Malmgren in April, l86l,in West-ljord, between the Loffoden Islands and the mainland, was referredby him, without hesitation, to this species. In Greenland it is said to be met. Fii;. 27. Common DoLnilN {Dcl/hiiiiis ,k-/p/ns, ). with, but Professor Flower thinks it doubtful whether some species of anallied genus may not have been mistaken for it. This is the true Dolphin of the Ancients, of which Professor Bell, inhis British Quadrupeds, says: the mythological and poetical associationswhich belong to the Dolphin, its reputed attachment to mankind, its benevo-lent aid in cases of shipwreck, its dedication to the gods, and many other attri-butes expressive of the high estimation in which it was held in olden times. SEALS AND WHALES OF TLLE BRLTISH SEAS. 123 afford a striking example of how the unrestrained imagination of the ancientscould raise the most gorgeous structures of poetry and religion upon the mostslender basis .... It requires some stretch of the imagination to identifythe round-headed creature which is represented in ancient coins and statues,with the straight sharp-beaked animal, which is here fig
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