Page:Audubon and His Journals.djvu/120

82 On the 17th of May, my baggage was put on board, I following, and the steamboat "Hercules" came alongside at seven, and in ten hours put the "Delos" to sea. I was immediately affected with sea-sickness, which, however, lasted but a short time; I remained on deck constantly, forcing myself to exercise. We calculated our day of departure to be May 18, 1826, at noon, when we first made an observation. It is now the 28th; the weather has been generally fair with light winds. The first objects which diverted my thoughts from the dear ones left behind me, were the beautiful Dolphins that glided by the vessel like burnished gold by day, and bright meteors by night. Our captain and mate proved experts at alluring them with baited hooks, and dexterous at piercing them with a five-pronged instrument, generally called by seamen "grain." If hooked, the Dolphin flounces desperately, glides off with all its natural swiftness, rises perpendicularly out of the water several feet, and often shakes off the hook and escapes; if, however, he is well hooked, he is played about for a while, soon exhausted, and hauled into the ship. Their flesh is firm, dry, yet quite acceptable at sea. They differ much in their sizes, being, according to age, smaller or larger; I saw some four and a half feet long, but a fair average is three feet. The paunch of all we caught contained more or less small fishes of different varieties, amongst which the flying-fish is most prevalent. Dolphins move in companies of from four or five to twenty or more. They chase the flying-fish, that with astonishing rapidity, after having escaped their sharp pursuer a while in the water, emerge, and go through the air with the swiftness of an arrow, sometimes in a straight course, sometimes forming part of a circle; yet frequently the whole is unavailing, for the Dolphin bounds from the sea in leaps of fifteen or twenty feet, and so moves rapidly towards his prey, and the little fish falls, to be swallowed by his antagonist. You must not suppose,