382                                   KALM'S  TRAVELS  IN NORTH  AMERICA.1
Linn. ; it is round, purple-coloured, opens like a bag, and in it are as if it were four
white rings ; their fize varies from one inch diameter to fix inches ; they have not that
nettling and burning quality which other blubbers have, fuch for inftance as are on the
coaft of Norway, and in the ocean. Thefe we met chiefly in the channel, and in the
Bay of Bifcay.
After having croffed more than half of the ocean between Europe and America, we
met with a kind of blubber, which is known to failors by the name of the Spanifh or
Portugueze man of war ; it looks like a great bladder, or the lungs of a quadruped,
compreffed on both fides, about fix inches in diameter, of a fine purple-red colour, and
when touched by the naked fkin of the human body, it caufes a greater burning than
any other kind of blubber. They are often overturned by the rolling of the waves,
but they are again ftanding up in an inftant, and keep the fharp or narrow fide uppermoft.
Within the American gulf we faw not only thefe Spanifh men of war, but another
kind too, for which the failors had no other name but that of a blubber. It was of the
fize of a pewter plate, brown in the middle, with a pale margin, which was in continual
motion.
Of the lepas anatifera Linn. I faw on the 30th of Auguft a log of wood, which
floated on the ocean, quite covered. Of infects I faw in the channel, when we were in
fight of the Ifle of Wight, feveral white butterflies, very like to the Papilio Braflicae Linn.
They never fettled ; and by their venturing at fo great a diftance from land they caufed
us juft aftonifhment.
Some common flies were in our cabbin alive during the whole voyage, and it cannot
therefore be determined whether they were originally in America, or whether they
came over with the Europeans.
Of cetaceous fifh we met with porpeffes, or as fome failors call them, fea-hogs*
(delphinus phocaena Linn.) firft in the channel, and then they continued every where
on this fide the Azores, where they are the only fifh navigators met with ; but beyond
thefe ifles they are feldom feen, till again in the neighbourhood of America we faw them
equally frequent to the very mouth of Delaware river. They always appeared in
fhoals, fome of which confifted of upwards of an hundred individuals ; their fwimming
was very fwift, and though they often fwam along fide of our fhip, being taken as it
were with the noife caufed by the fhip cutting the waves, they however foon outwent
her, when they were tired with flaring at her. They are from four to eight feet long,
have a bill like in fhape to that of a goofe, a white belly, and leap up into the air fre-
quently four feet high, and from four to eight feet in length ; though their fnoring
indicates the effort which a leap of that nature cofts them. Our failors made many
vain attempts to ftrike one of them with the harp iron from the forecaftle, when they
came within reach, but their velocity always eluded their fkill.
Another cetaceous fifh, of the dolphin kind f, with which we met, is called by the
* The name of porpefle is certainly derived from the name Porcopefce, given to this genus by the Ita-
lians* and it is remarkable that almoft all the European nations confpired in calling them fea-hogs, their
name being in German meer fchwein ; the Danifh, Swedifh, and Norvegian, maifuin, from whence the
French borrowed their marfouin. The natives of Iceland call them fuinhual, i. e. a fwine-whale,, and fo
likewife the Slavonian nations have their Swinia Morfkaya. Whether this confent arifes from their rooting
the fand at the bottom of the fea in queft of fand-eels and fea-worms like fwiue, or from the vaft quantity
of lard furrounding their bodies, is uncertain.    F.
-"• Mr. Kalm is certainly miftaken in reckoning the bottle-nofe amongft the Dolphin kind ; it has no
teeth in its mouth as all the fifh of that clafs have, and therefore belongs to the firft order of the whales, or
thofe that are without teeth. See Mr. Pennant's Britifh Zoology, vol. iii. p. 43.» where it is called the beak-
ed whale, and very well defcribed ; a drawing is feen ia the explanatory table, n. I. Perhaps it would not
be improper to call it Balsena ampullata.    F.
failors