For ten weeks, in a great house on the island of St. Thomas, Dr. John C. Lilly tried to teach a six-year-old dolphin to speak English. Margaret Howe, an experiment (实验) helper, would live day and night with Peter, a dolphin. And they would eat, bathe, sleep and play together from Sunday to Friday, with only Saturdays off for Margaret. She lived her life in swimming clothes — with a coat on colder evenings — and cut her hair short so that she could get on with Peter more easily.
After a few days, Peter was becoming more and more interested in winning her attention. He threw a ball against her shower towel to get her to play. As time went by, he only wanted to play balls with her and not on his own.
The problem was that, just at the time Peter and Margaret began to get on well just as two best friends, the experiment ended and the lab was closed. After a few weeks, Margaret received the sad news that Peter had killed himself by refusing to breathe, and sinking to the bottom of his pool.
Dolphins may not speak English, but just like humans, they know all about broken hearts.
