But dolphin researchers warn against glorifying dolphins beyond the realms of mammaldom. "Everybody who's done research in the field is tired of dolphin lovers who believe these creatures are floating hobbits," said Karen Pryor, a dolphin trainer and scientist who lives in North Bend, Wash. "A dolphin is a healthy social mammal, and it behaves like one, including doing things that we don't find particularly charming." Ms. Pryor and Dr. Norris have edited a book that sums up the state of the dolphin field, called "Dolphin Societies: Discoveries and Puzzles" and just published by the University of California Press. The Mating Game Male Gangs Out Cruising for Mates

Dolphins become particularly churlish when they want to mate, or to avoid being mated. Female bottle nose dolphins bear a single calf only once every four or five years, so a fertile female is a prized commodity to the males. Because there is almost no size difference between the sexes, a single female cannot be forced to mate by a lone male. That may be part of the reason why males team into gangs.

In the latest research on bottlenose dolphins, Dr. Connor and his colleagues spent the last 10 years studying a network of about 300 dolphins in Shark Bay, in western Australia, and devoted 25 months to observing male behavior in detail. They followed dolphins around in a 12-foot dinghy, identifying individuals through scar patterns on their fins and recording their whistles and clicks whenever possible.

The researchers have discovered that early in adolescence, a male bottlenose will form an unshakeable alliance with one or two other males. These dolphins stick together for years and perhaps a lifetime, swimming, fishing and playing together, and flaunting their fast friendship by always traveling abreast and surfacing in exact synchrony.

Sometimes that simple pair or triplet is able to woo a fertile female on its own, although what happens once the males have herded in a female, and whether she goes for one or all of them, is not yet known: the researchers have yet to witness a dolphin copulation. Nor do researchers understand how the males determine that a female is in estrus or at least approaching it, and thus is worth attempting to herd. Males do sometimes sniff around a female's genitals, as though trying to sense her receptivity, but because bottlenose dolphins give birth so rarely, males may attempt to keep a female around even when she is not ovulating, with the hope that she will require their services when the prized moment of estrus arrives. Growing Obstreperous

At other times potential mates are scarce, and male alliances grow obstreperous. That is when pairs or triplets may seek to steal females from other groups. To do that, they seek out another alliance of lonely bachelors, and somehow persuade that pair or triplet of dolphins to join in the venture. The researchers are not yet sure what signals the males use to recruit outside aid, but they believe the supplicants use their pectoral fins to stroke the males from which they need assistance, or perhaps give them a few gentle pecks.

In simpler maneuvers among primates, scientists have observed that when one male needs the help of another, he takes a rather blunt approach.