A grampus contrived to get above the new Richmond Lock
last week, and, of course, the first impulse of all the men in the river was to kill it, since a stranger ought to be killed for being a stranger. It did not manage to return with the tide over the lock, and so there were two or three days in which to pursue it, and the number of missiles burled at it was something tremendous. There was certainly this excuse that it devoured a great quantity of fish (it was 11 ft. long), and might even have upset some of the wherries, but the instinct to kill a strange bird or beast or fish in the average Englishman is something quite preternatural. (We have known a pair of wax-bills casually visiting this country to be shot at once.) At last the poor creature was shot, and is now on show at Twickenham. The grampus is the biggest of the dolphins, and is said to be a cannibal, as it preys on smaller dolphins, and a flock of grampuses will even combine to pursue and kill whales. We do not think that it can have enjoyed its temporary resi- dence in the Thames, for its food was somewhat short, we fancy, and it was certainly pursued with relentless hostility by all the local boatmen, who even borrowed a great deer-net to effect its capture. In the case of the grampus there was some reason for this hostility, but we fear it would have been jest the same if it had been a perfectly harmless visitor. Englishmen feel no sort of hospitality towards really strange creatures if they are below the level of man, and only a little even if they are above it.
Previous page
