Mr. T. Brightwell on the Bottle-nosed Dolphin. 21 



IV. — Observations on a specimen of the Bottle-nosed Dolphin, Del- 

 phinus Tursio, Fabr., taken at Great Yarmouthy October 1845. 

 By Thomas Brightwell, F.L.S. 



[With a Plate.] 



A CETACEOUS animal, which appears to me to be the Delphinus 

 Tursio of Fabricius, was captured off Yarmouth this season by 

 the herring fishermen and brought to Norwich. I saw it soon 

 after its arrival, when it was in a fresh state, and have procured 

 a good coloured figure of it, one-tenth the natural size, a reduced 

 copy of which I send herewith (Plate II.) . As the animal appears 

 to be very rare on our coasts, and but imperfectly known to na- 

 turalists, I doubt not a good figure and description of it will be 

 acceptable to your zoological readers. 



This cetacean was eight feet two inches long, and four feet 

 ten inches in circumference at the largest part. The colour of 

 the upper part and sides a very rich deep purple-black. The 

 external cuticle was of a soft and silky texture, and so thin and 

 delicate that it was easily rubbed off. The nose, and a well-de- 

 fined line along the upper jaw, and the whole of the lower jaw 

 and belly, were of a cream-colour, varied in some parts by a 

 chalky -coloured white, contrasting beautifully with the rich black 

 of the body. The fins and tail were of the same colour as the 

 back. The length of the mouth was nine inches and a half, 

 with twenty-four teeth in the upper jaw and twenty-three in 

 the lower jaw; the teeth small, conical, and rather sharp. The 

 length from the tip of the nose to the eye thirteen inches. From 

 the tip of the nose to the pectoral or lower fin, twenty inches : 

 this tin was fifteen inches long. From the tip of the nose to 

 the dorsal fin forty-one inches, and this fin was eleven inches and 

 a half wide next the back, and ten inches high. The width of 

 the tail twenty-two inches. The animal was a female, and weighed 

 about thirty stone. Both the jaws were clearly but moderately 

 elongated, the lower extending a little farther than the upper ; 

 and there was a well-defined depression between the elongation 

 of the upper jaw and the forehead, the point of this depression 

 being marked by a slight ridge. The blow-hole was of a horse- 

 shoe form, with the convex part towards the head of the animal. 



The Delphinus Tursio is not noticed in Sir William Jardine's 

 very useful little work on the Cetacea, but it is figured and de- 

 scribed in Mr. BelFs ' British Quadrupeds,' p. 469. On a re- 

 ference to that work, it will, we think, appear that we have 

 rightly concluded our animal to be of this species. The points 

 of generic and specific distinction are the beaked prolongation 

 of the head and the form of the teeth. The figure sent will 



