Porpoise

“ All is over, and the place is very silent, except for the clink of hammers where they are breaking down our wooden walls, and, seaward, the cry and splash of gull and tern dipping for their prey in the shoal of herring-fry which is wandering about the bay. Close inshore a porpoise is wallowing, like the jolly sea-pig that he is, in his berth of glistening water. ”

“ Alongside was the active porpoise, rolling over and over on the waves, and seeming, by the regularity of his progress, to measure his speed to that of the ship. Every now and then, too, a lively bonito, either from mere sportiveness, or to avoid some approaching and voracious enemy, would leap bodily into the air, and, after performing a perfect summerset, drop into the deep again, and be seen no more. If the eye pushed its survey further, the ship herself, viewed from the quarter-deck, presented [133] much to arrest its attention. ”

“ To watch the grampus, the porpoise, or perhaps the great white shark playing around the vessel and darting before its bow as if offering to guide its course through the trackless deep, are the daily amusements of every landsman in these seas ”

“ To see a porpoise leap high out of the water like a salmon is a fine sight, but to see two or three whales at one and the same time thus disporting themselves, while some lie in the water beating time with their terrible tails, others playing at leap frog, and the sea for acres round them churned into froth and meerschaum, is a sight that once seen can never be forgotten. ”

“ There is a great shoal of sand-eels yonder, and the porpoises are driving them into a mass; for, you see, the sand-eel is only a very small morsel for a porpoise, and to pick them up one by one would not suit Mr. Porpoise, who would get hungry again by the time he had done feeding on them singly; so they drive them into a thick crowd, in order that when they make a dash at them they may get a dozen or two at a mouthful. ”

“ But then it may put the very next ship into a quarantine from which she would be glad to escape into a Spanish lazaretto.
Our little bark is again in sight, hovering like an unquiet cloud on the horizon. She bears up with right good heart against the winds. Steady, my little ocean friend! Keep up thy indomitable courage; thou shalt yet weather this cape of ice and thunder. To-day we harpooned a cape porpoise. It differs widely from those found in other zones; is more lithe and slender; seems formed for speed, and has beautiful black and white stripes running from head to tail ”

“ A better or braver fellow never stepped,” answered Porpoise, warmly, putting out his hand. “I’ve no doubt you are worthy of him, youngster. We’ll have a yarn about him by and by. However, just now, we must try to get the craft in sailing trim again.” ”

“ An occasional whale is seen blowing in the distance, and many grampuses come rolling about the ship,—most inelegant brutes, some three or four times the size of a porpoise. Each in turn comes up, throws himself round on the top of the sea, exposing nearly half his body, and then rolls off again. ”

“ There was also at that time carried on with considerable success, a porpoise fishery, after a fashion peculiar, I believe, to that part of the world. Porpoises often made their appearance very near the coast, in shoals not "schools," for porpoises are uneducated some hundreds in number. ”

“ Father rushed forward over the debris on deck. In less than five minutes every living man aboard was on the fo’c’s’le head standing by to help land a porpoise.
A porpoise is a mammal and its meat is very like that of beef. If we could land one it would furnish fresh food for a week. Father stood down on the martingale under the jibboom, harpoon in hand. We waited praying for the porpoise to come near. The thin leader line from the harpoon was fastened to a three-quarter inch rope made fast to the capstan. ”

“ The next instant the Porpoise was riding the waves of the little bay, dancing about as lightly as a cork, though, from the nature of her construction, she was quite low in the water, only about [15] three feet of freeboard showing where the platform was located.
"Well, she floats, anyhow," remarked the professor. "Row out and fasten cables fore and aft," he went on, turning to the two machinists. In a few minutes the Porpoise was fastened to a small dock with strong ropes the two young men had carried out to her in rowboats. ”

“ Those destroyers were new at the game and filled with enthusiasm, and half a dozen times that day [210] the sharp bark of three-inch or four-inch guns added to the joy of life. When it wasn’t inanimate wreckage that made a lookout gasp and shout incoherently it was a porpoise. A porpoise appearing suddenly near the bow suggests just one thing in the world, and it isn’t “Porpoise!” It’s “Torpedo!” The Gyandotte was theoretically blown to bits at least five times that day by playful porpoises! ”

“ The Common Porpoise (P. communis) is the species that is so often seen close to our shores and in the harbours and estuaries, swimming in shoals with a graceful undulatory movement. Porpoises move forward entirely by the vertical action of their powerful horizontal tails, and extend their flippers only to change their course or to arrest their progress. At short intervals they rise to the surface, exposing their slate-coloured backs and dorsal fins for a moment, and then immediately dive downwards in such a manner as to appear to turn a series of somersaults. ”

“ During the night two porpoise came around the boat and he could hear them rolling and blowing. He could tell the difference between the blowing noise the male made and the sighing blow of the female.
"They are good," he said. "They play and make jokes and love one another. They are our brothers like the flying fish." ”

“ As the tide rises, it covers the twigs, so as to keep them out of sight: the porpoise, in quest of his prey, gets within the line; when those who placed the snare rush out in numbers, properly armed, and, while in this defenceless state, they overpower him with ease. ”

“ Presently he saw his chance: a porpoise, more daring or careless than the rest, shot within his distance. It was a good throw he made: clean into the back-fin went the steel; and away like a flash of lightning shot Master Porpoise. It went aft, towing the line with it. Every available hand promptly clapped on to the whirring line: one man endeavoured to snatch a holding turn round a bollard ”

“ For all these reasons, we have little desire to defend our decision to follow the last of these practices in this guide, referring to all members of the family Delphinidae for which the term dolphin or porpoise appears in the common name as dolphins, and to the one member of the family Phocoenidae represented in the western North Atlantic, Phocoena phocoena, as the harbor porpoise. Although all cetaceans may be regarded as whales, the term "whale" most commonly applies to the larger animals. For all species treated, other common names by which they may be known are also listed. ”

“ I ran forward. The porpoise line (which was kept ready rove in tail-block on the bowsprit) was towering under the bow. I seized and rounded it in, and brought up the "iron," or rather the pole and socket thereof, the shank being broken off close up. It would seem that Farrell, having the lookout, and all the rest being comfortably snoozing, had discovered porpoises playing under the bow, and being in the humor for a lark, determined to strike one "on his own hook," without calling for reinforcements until after he was "fast." ”

“ The Porpoise is one of the cetacea, and nearly allied to the dolphin, but it has not the beaked snout of that animal. The length of the Porpoise, from the tip of the snout to the end of the tail, is from four to eight feet, and its girth about two feet and a half. The figure of the whole body is conical; the colour of the back is deep blue, inclining to shining black; the sides are grey, becoming white below. The tail is crescent-shaped. There are only three fins, one on the back, and one on each shoulder. The eyes are very small. When the flesh is cut up, it looks very much like pork ”

“ The porpoise, which is sociable and gregarious, is usually seen in small herds, and frequents coasts, bays and estuaries rather than the open ocean. It is the commonest cetacean in the seas round the British Isles, and not infrequently ascends the Thames, having been seen as high as Richmond; it has also been observed in the Seine at Neuilly, near Paris. It frequents the Scandinavian coasts, entering the Baltic in the summer; and is found as far north as Baffin's Bay and as far west as the coasts of the United States. ”

“ A few living things distract our melancholy. Young porpoises, with silver bellies and slender snouts, play around the hull, lashing the water as if with thongs of whipcord, falling back with a gleaming graceful movement. The old porpoises, mere dignified, follow patiently their continual leapings, sewing the cloth of the sea with an invisible thread; each one of their stitches on this blue material leaves a streak of foam. ”

“ The sweet face of the sea wears a million sparkling smiles of welcome—everywhere the advent of the Day-bringer has decked it with countless flashing gems. As if ecstatic in their appreciation of the banishment of night, a school of porpoises five thousand strong indulge in riotous gambols. Leaping high into the bright air, their shining, lithe bodies all a-quiver with pure joy of abundant life, they churn the kindly sea into foam, leaving in their mad, frolicsome rush a wide track of white on the smoothness behind them. ”

“ When a shoal of porpoises came to race with the ship, every one on board was up on the rail to see; and an exhilarating sight it is, when the ship is going before the wind in a rough sea, and the porpoises dart visibly through the midst of a billow, and pitch, and rise, and cross each other's path, swiftly and orderly, without ever relaxing their speed, till they are tired of play. It is impossible to help having a favourite among the shoal, and watching him with an interest and admiration which, upon consideration, are really ridiculous. ”

“ The first dorsal fin of this fish has very strong spines which may inflict severe wounds when the live creature is carelessly handled.
Omitting all mention of sea birds, for the reason previously given, we now pass to the highest division of vertebrates—the Mammals—of which we shall describe but one species—the Common Porpoise, this being the only marine mammal that can be regarded as a frequent visitor to the British coasts in general. ”

“ Porpoise-steak tastes pretty good to a man who has been nearly two months without fresh meat. A porpoise is really a small whale, and is roughly about the size of a swordfish. There must be com­par­a­tively few people who have not seen porpoises. The meat is much like whale-meat, but more tender and better flavored.
A fine oil is extracted from the porpoise, the best coming from the jaw. The porpoise jaw-oil is used for chronometers and watches. Mr. Baker thought we might as well get every­thing the porpoises had to give, and he had the blubber tried out, and the jaw-oil. ”

“ So it was; and in hot haste she seemed indeed.
“Something is the matter on board that craft,” said Porpoise, who had been looking at her through his glass. “Yes, she has a signal of distress flying.”
“The Lord have mercy on the hapless people on board, then!” said I. “Small is the help we or any one else can afford them.”
“If we don’t look out, she’ll be aboard us, sir,” sung out Snow. “To my mind, she’s sprung a leak, and the people aboard are afraid she’ll go down.”
“Stand by to make sail on the cutter; and put the helm up,” cried Porpoise. ”

“ But the porpoises were, on the whole, vastly more appreciative than the turtles; they jumped a deal higher. One day when I was humming a favorite chant, I think it was "Babylon's a-Fallin'," a porpoise jumped higher than the bowsprit. ”

“ Their hearts still beating loudly from the closeness of death, the adventurers continued their way. On every side were fish, big and little, and, though some of the larger ones thrust themselves to the men and boys, as if wondering what strange creatures they were, none of them offered to attack.
Led by the professor they made a complete circuit of the ship that was held fast in the ice. As the inventor had surmised, the Porpoise was nipped only above and below. If she could be freed at either of those points she could rise to the surface, or sink down under the ice. ”

“ Once we sighted a whale, once we caught a young shark, and several times we had a porpoise hunt. These were quite exciting. One of the men, armed with a harpoon, would take his stand in the chains ready to strike at any polished back as it rose or rolled beneath him; another man stood by with a bowline to be slipped instantly over the tail of the “catch” by way of support, while Floss and Darkie, rigid with excitement, paws upon the rail, hindfeet on the deck, rapturously barked and squealed. Once a porpoise did get “fixed” ”

“ The faster the ship goes the greater seems to be the sport. The porpoise is little more than a powerfully muscular tail, developed at the expense of the rest of the body. Most sailing craft carry a spear or harpoon, for the sailors not only like the excitement of taking these animals, but also find in their flesh a welcome variety to the monotonous ship fare. ”

“ This Black Sea porpoise is readily distinguished from the Atlantic species by the contour of the profile of the head, which, in place of forming a continuous curve from the muzzle to what represents the neck, has a marked prominence above the angle of the mouth, followed by an equally marked depression. The teeth are also different in form and number. The absence of porpoises from the Mediterranean is explained by Dr Abel on account of the greater saltness of that sea as compared with the ocean in general ”