66 March, 



A WHITK-BEAKED DOI^PHIN 



(I^AGENORHYNCHUS A1,BIR0STRIS) 



IN DUBLIN BAY. 



BY R. V. SCHARFF, PH.D., M.R.I.A. 



About the middle of December last, a creature, at first de- 

 scribed as a great shark, rushed into shallow water at the 

 Sutton Strand, which is situated on the northern side of Dublin 

 Bay. It was no doubt pursuing fish, which form its natural 

 food, and in doing so reached a narrow channel from which, 

 during the receding tide, retreat became impossible. Mr. F. 

 Manico, of Sutton, observed the struggling form in the water 

 and managed to secure it with ropes. He also recognised 

 that the creature was not a fivsh, but one of the whale-tribe, 

 and identified it as a Grampus. As such it was conveyed to 

 the city, and exhibited for a week to admiring crowds by Mr. 

 M. J. M'Cabe in the South City Market. There I first saw it, 

 and identified it as a White- beaked Dolphin, and I herewith 

 give a much-reduced figure taken from a rough sketch of this 

 remarkable species of the whale tribe, whose native home is 

 in the Arctic seas- 



On comparing it with the figure of the head of the same 

 vSpecies as given in my paper^ on .the Irish Cetacea, it will be 

 noticed that the latter was not quite correct, but I may mention 

 that it was not my own, having been copied from a sketch in 

 the British Museum Catalogue (Cetacea). Mr. Beddard, in his 

 *' Book of Whales,'* referred to in my previous paper, mentions 

 that this Dolphin grows to a length of nine feet, but the Dublin 

 Bay specimen measured no less than twelve feet. It was a 



^ Iris/i Naturalist, vol. ix., 1900, plate 4, fig. lo. 



