[Day2480 2021-07-10]
Lesson 18-1 Porpoises
There has long been a superstition among mariners that porpoises
will save drowning men by pushing them to the surface, or protect them
from sharks by surrounding them in defensive formation. Marine Studio
biologists have pointed out that, however intelligent they may be, it is
probably a mistake to credit dolphins with any motive of lifesaving. On
the occasions when they have pushed to shore an unconscious human
being they have much more likely done it out of curiosity or for sport, as
in riding the bow waves of a ship. In 1928 some porpoises were
photographed working like beavers to push ashore a waterlogged
mattress. If, as has been reported, they have protected humans from
sharks, it may have been because curiosity attracted them and because
the scent of a possible meal
attracted the sharks.
