62 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



polished glossy black skin of the back contrasting | 

 with the equally pure and well defined white of the 

 lower parts has a very striking effect ; altogether it is 

 a very handsome species, but there is something in 

 its appearance which seems to indicate its cruel 

 nature. The adult Killer measures about 21 ft. in 

 length, the back is pure black, the under parts white^ 

 and over the eye is a well-defined white spot ; there 

 are thirteen or fourteen strong, slightly curved teeth 

 on either side of both jaws ; the flippers are broad 

 and oval shaped, the dorsal fin high, particularly in 

 the male. 



As these papers are intended for the purpose of 

 assisting in the identification of casual visitants to our 

 shores rather than of giving anything like a history of 

 the known British species of Cetacea, it may be 

 desirable to mention here a very remarkable form, 

 which although it has never been known to occur in 

 the flesh on our shores, was first made known to 

 science from an imperfect skeleton found in a semi- 

 fossil condition beneath the peat in a Lincolnshire 

 Fen. To this Dolphin " come back as it were, from 

 the dead," and which forms a connecting link between 

 the genus Orca and the genera Grampus and Globi- 

 cephalus (and which Owen had named Phocana 

 crassidens), Reinhardt gives the name of Pseudorca 

 crassidens. On the 24th November, 1861, a large 

 shoal of these dolphins made their appearance in the 

 Bay of Kiel, about thirty of which the sailors suc- 

 ceeded in separating from the remainder, but all, with 

 one exception, escaped. This was a female i6feet long, 

 which after being exhibited at Kiel and other places, 

 was bought for the collection of the University of 

 Kiel. In the summer of 1862, three other individuals, 

 presumably from the same shoal, were thrown ashore 

 on the north-western coast of Zealand. Of the general 

 appearance of this creature the accompanying 

 figure (49), copied, by kind permission, from Pro- 

 fessor Flower's translation of Reinhardt's paper 

 read before the Royal Danish Society of Sciences 

 in 1S62, and published by the Ray Society, 

 will give an idea ; the figure is from a photo- 

 graph of the Kiel specimen, and is not in the 

 original paper. The length is from 16 to 19 feet ; 

 of the colour no account is given, but judging from 

 the woodcut of the Kiel specimen it appears to be 

 uniformly shiny black. The number of teeth differs 

 in individuals, but in this one it was from 9 to 10 on 

 either side of the lower jaw, and 8 to 10 in the upper. 

 From the observations made by Reinhardt, he suggests 

 the possibility that there may be " a difference in the 

 sizes of the different sexes, and whether the females 

 are not larger, but at the same time, perhaps, provided 

 with a head comparatively smaller than that of the 

 males." It is very suggestive of how little we know 

 of the inhabitants of the sea, that at least one vast 

 shoal of a species known only from its sub-fossil 

 remains should be roaming the seas only to be accident- 

 ally discovered when its members became entangled 



in shoals from which probably many never lived to 

 extricate themselves. 



Risso's Dolphin {Grampus griseus, G. Cuvier) is 

 a rare and little known species, which has been met 

 with four times on the south coast of England and 

 about eight times in France. In the "Transactions 

 of the Zoological Society," for 187 1, Prof. Flower 

 gives an account of an adult female which was taken 

 in a mackarel-net, near the Eddystone Lighthouse, 

 on 28th February, 1S70, and which eventually was 

 sent up to London, when it was seen and described 

 by that gentleman. About a month later, a second 

 specimen was received in London, the precise locality 

 of which was not known, but it was probably from 

 somewhere in the Channel. This was also a female, 

 but a very young animal, and as the adult female first 

 taken had recently given birth to a young one, it is 

 quite possible that it may have belonged to her. On 

 the 26th July, a male of the same species was captured 

 alive at Sidlesham, near Chichester, and sent to the 

 Brighton Aquarium, where it lived only a few hours. 

 Risso's Dolphin varies very considerably in its 

 colouration. The Sidlesham specimen was bluish- 

 black above, and dirty white beneath ; in the adult 

 female described by Professor Flower (from whose 

 illustration our figure is, with his permission, 

 copied), "the head and the whole of the body 

 anterior to the dorsal fin was of a lightish grey, 

 variegated with patches of both darker and whiter 

 hue. . . . Behind the anterior edge of the dorsal 

 fin the general colour of the surface, including the 

 dorsal and caudal fins, was nearly black, though 

 with a large light patch on the upper part of the side 

 directly above the pudendal orifice. The middle of 

 the belly as far back as the pudendal orifice, was 

 greyish white. "* The most remarkable characteristic 

 however, was the presence, scattered over the body, 

 of irregular light streaks and spots, these markings 

 extended from the head to within about two feet from 

 the tail and presented a most singular appearance. 

 In the young one the upper parts and sides of the 

 body were almost black, the lower parts nearly white, 

 the junction between the two colours being very 

 abrupt and sharp. " On either side the body were 

 six vertical whitish stripes nearly symmetrically ar- 

 ranged, and almost equidistant, being about six inches 

 apart. They did not extend quite to the middle line 

 of the body above, and were lost below in the light 

 colour of the abdomen. ™f The length of the Sidle- 

 sham male was 8 feet, that of the adult female 10 ft. 

 6 in. ; in the former there were present four teeth on 

 each side the lower jaw, in the latter three only on 

 each side, and in the immature specimen there were 

 present seven teeth, four on the right, and three on 

 the left side, the teeth are always placed in the front 

 part of the mandible, and in every specimen exa- 



Trans. Zool. Soc, vol. viii., p. 3. 

 t 1. c. p. 13- 



