90 ENQUIRIES INTO VULGAR [BOOK V. blood. And the same may be better made out, if (as some relate) their feathers on that part are sometimes observed to be red and tinctured with blood. 9
CHAPTER II.
Of the Picture of Dolphins.
That dolphins are crooked, is not only affirmed by the hand of the painter, but commonly conceived their natural and proper figure, which is not only the opinion of our times, but seems the belief of elder times before us. For, beside the expressions of Ovid and Pliny, the portraits in some ancient coins are framed in this figure, as will appear in some thereof in Gesner, others in Goltsius, and Lsevinus Hulsius in his description of coins from Julius Caesar unto Rodolphus the second.
Notwithstanding, to speak strictly, in their natural figure they are straight, nor have their spine convexed, or more considerably embowed, than sharks, porpoises, whales, and other cetaceous animals, as Scaliger plainly affirmeth; Corpus hahet?ion magis curviwi quam reliqui pisces. As ocular enquiry informeth; and as, unto such as have not had the opportunity to behold them, their proper portraits will dis-
9 A possibility, &c.] This paragraph was first added in 6th edition.
1 porpoises.~ Reade porkpisces. The porkpisce (that is the dolphin) hath his name from the hog hee resembles in convexity and curvitye of his backe, from the head to the tayle: nor is hee otherwise curbe, then as a hog is: except that before a storme, hee tumbles just as a hog runs. That which I once saw, cutt up in Fish street, was of this forme and above five foote longe: his skin not skaly, but smoothe and black, like bacon in the chimney; and his bowels in all points like a hog: and yf instead of his four fins you imagine four feete, hee would represent a black hog (ast it were) sweal'd alive.—Wr..
This creature, so graphically described by the dean, is probably the common dolphin,—Delphinus Delphis; but the porpoise is a different animal, Delphis Phocæna, now constituted a distinct genus. Ray, however, says, that the porpoise is the dolphin of the ancients. The following passage from his Philosophical Letters, p. 46, corroborates the dean's proposed etymology. It occurs in a letter to Dr. Martin Lister, May 7, 1669. "Totam corpus copiosâ et densâ pinguedine, (piscatores blubber vocant) duorum plus minus digitorum crassitie undique integebatur, immediate sub cute, et supra carnem musculosam sita, ut in porcis; ob quam rationem, et quod porcorum grunnitum quadantenus imitetur, porpesse,—i.e. porcum piscem, dictum eum existimo."
