DOLPHINS 289 



rapacious Orca quickly dives, and, coming up under 

 the parent animal, with a spiteful thud throws the 

 young one from the dam's back into the water, 

 when in a twinkling it is seized, and with one 

 crush devoured by its enemy." These observations 

 refer to the Killer whales in general. A large 

 number of different species have been described or 

 at least named. " But," observes Sir W. Flower, 

 "their specific differential characters, if any, have 

 never been clearly defined." We shall not, there- 

 fore, attempt any discrimination of species. These 

 have been partly founded upon the varying length 

 of the dorsal fin and upon the colour, which is 

 black, more or less pervaded with white blotches 

 (yellow in v. Beneden's figure). The typical Orca 

 gladiator* has much white about the body, and 

 an excellent model of this Cetacean, agreeing 

 with Mr. True's fia-ure of the whale, has been 



o 



set up in the Natural History Museum at South 

 Kensington. It is a whale that has been fre- 



O 



quently met with upon our shores, and a few years 

 since a herd of three ascended the Thames for 

 some distance. It occurs also in all parts of 

 the world. It is quite possible that there are 

 several species of the genus. But probably the 

 bulk of the dozen or so of species allowed by Dr. 

 Gray have no existence save in his and in other 

 catalogues. 



* It is only possible to be certain of the existence of one species. In 

 this case O. ilnhameli, Lacepede ; O. schlcgclii, Liljeborg ; O. minor, 

 Malm, etc., are merely synonyms, 



U 



