4 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



skull of Steno, I never heard of any species of Steno being 

 found in the seas of Europe, but many are brought, as 

 curiosities, from the Indian Ocean. 



Other skulls of Prodelphinus are in Scottish museums. 

 I have one which I think is from the Moray Firth, but I 

 cannot prove it. I do not know of a single adult skull of 

 Lagenorhynckus acutus in any of the larger museums in 

 Scotland. It must be a rare species. I may mention 

 that Sir Wm. Turner puts Delphinus, Prodelphinus, and 

 Lagenorhynchus all in one genus = DelpJiimis ; and really 

 Lagenorhynckus acutus and Prodelphinus euphrosyne are 

 nearly allied species, and can only be distinguished by 

 careful examination, for they are both "white-sided" Dolphins. 

 Unless the skull of the Ardrishaig example has been pre- 

 served, or seen by Sir Wm. Flower or Sir Wm. Turner, 

 I should doubt its being a Lagenorhynchus acutus. Probably 

 Prodelphinus is not the only Cetacean in British seas that 

 has failed to be recorded. I think the identification of 

 nearly half of the ordinary records of Cetaceans is open to 

 doubt. It is high time that something should be said about 

 the recorded sizes of Dolphins. It is strange that Mr. 

 Beddard's "Book of Whales" (1900) is the first popular 

 book that gives the correct size of the full-grown porpoise 

 (Phoc&na communis), namely 5^- feet. I have measured 

 it, Mr. Lydekker says, from 4 to 5 feet. Worse still, 

 Mr. Boyd Watt quotes : " Delphinus tursio, from 12 to 15 

 feet in length." Delphinus ( Tursiops] tursio is only I 2 feet 

 long when not measured. A friend of mine told me that 

 the largest of four stranded individuals of this species was 

 about 1 2 feet long. It measured 9 feet 2 inches ! The 

 average adult Tursiops tursio does not exceed 9.5 feet long, 

 in a straight line. If the " Great Dolphin " was from 1 2 to 

 i 5 feet long, it must have been some other species. Neither 

 Sir Wm. Flower nor Sir Wm. Turner have ever demonstrated 

 that species of Cetaceans vary more in size than species 

 of land mammals do. If we paid more attention to the 

 works of these authors, and less attention to the ordinary 

 records, we would soon make headway in our knowledge of 

 the Cetaceans of our shores. 



