ZOOLOGICAL NOTES 51 



Bottle-nosed Dolphins in the Moray Firth. Four years ago I 

 sent a note to the " Annals " about the stranding of four Bottle-nosed 

 Dolphins (Tursiops tursio) near Delny in Ross-shire, in October 

 1897. This year again, on the 7th October, six Dolphins of the 

 same species were stranded in Munlochy Bay, near Inverness. I, 

 not being informed of the occurrence, did not see them till a week 

 afterwards, when I went to Munlochy and examined some of them, 

 and found that they belonged to Tursiops tursio, a species which 

 I am now familiar with, as I saw the four at Delny, and also a few 

 on the coast of Texas a dozen years ago. At first I thought 

 I might get one fresh and perfect specimen, but the skin was badly 

 cut and many teeth broken, so only secured one skull. Mr. Beddard, 

 in his " Book of Whales," says this is a rare species on our coasts. 

 I hardly think that is so, as one or two may often be stranded and 

 no notice taken of them ; and as this is the second lot accidentally 

 stranded in the Moray Firth, seen by myself within four years, I think 

 they must be common along the coasts of Scotland in the month of 

 October, as probably one in a hundred, or fewer, have the misfortune 

 to get ashore. Large numbers of small whales and " porpoises " 

 are often driven ashore by fishermen, but as a rule the species is not 

 identified. They are "just Bottlenoses." I measured two females 

 at Munlochy, the largest of which was 9 feet 10 inches long in a 

 straight line from tip of snout to outside of notch of tail. The 

 notch was 2 inches deep. The dorsal fin was 1 2 inches high. The 

 colour was dark lead above and along the sides, and white below 

 the usual colour of this species. An embryo about a foot long had 

 been cut out of the largest female and taken away. I tried to 

 recover it by offering a small reward for it, but it could not be found. 

 So I did not get a chance to count the hairs on the face, if any 

 were present at that stage. I cannot help calling attention to the 

 accuracy of the late Sir Wm. Flower about the length of this species, 

 and all other species of the Delphimis group, when he said they 

 seldom exceed ten feet in length. The largest Munlochy ones w r ere 

 said to measure "about 1 1 feet" in length, but they must have been 

 measured along the curves of the body to the point of one fluke of 

 the tail. In museums, where sometimes skulls only are preserved, 

 the length of an animal of the species Tursiops tursio may be roughly 

 ascertained. If an animal 9 feet long has a skull about 20 inches 

 long, an animal 10 feet long will have a skull about 22 inches long. 

 In the same way, if a Balasnoptera 79 feet long has the ramus of 

 its jaw about 2 1 feet long, as in the famous Longniddry whale, a 

 Balanoptera 95 feet long must have the ramus of the jaw more than 

 25 feet long. If there are no 25-feet jaws in existence, I hold there 

 are no 95-feet whales. One book says they reach a length of 100 

 feet, another limits them to 95 feet. Let us return to Flower again. 

 He says the largest of all whales may attain a length of "even 85 



