AMERICAN RECORDS OF WHALES OF THE GENUS 

 PSEUDORCA. 



By Gekrit S. Miller, Jr. 



Curator, Division of Mammals. United States National Museum. 



Hitherto the only positive record of the occurrence of whales of 

 the genus Pseudorca in American waters appears to rest on the type 

 specimen (rostrum and jaws. No. 3679, U.S.N.M.) of Cope's 07xa 

 destructor,^ taken off Paita, Peru. A skull (No. 11320, U.S.N.M.) 

 supposed to have come from the northeast coast of North America 

 ("very probably it was origmally obtained in Davis Strait") is 

 mentioned in True's Review of the family Delphinida}.^ On the 

 evidence of this specimen the false killer has been regarded as a 

 North American mammal. Search of the museum records has 

 failed to reveal any history other than the entry in the catalogue 

 made by Prof. S. F. Baird on October 15, 1870: "Orca. N. E. Coast. 

 Nantucket Athenaeum." So vague a statement — "N. E." might 

 as well mean New England as northeast — can not be regarded as 

 establishing the cosmopolitan genus Pseudorca as part of the North 

 American fauna. The whalers of Nantucket did not confine their 

 operations to the "northeast coast"; the mere fact that this skull 

 was regarded by one of them as of enough interest to be deposited 

 in the Athenaeum would of itself suggest an origin more remote. 



It is now possible to record three authentic occurrences of Pseu- 

 dorca in North America; also one in the Caribbean Sea. 



The South American specim.en (No. 20932, U.S.N.M.) is a much- 

 weathered skuU and imperfect skeleton from one of the Aves Islands 

 in the Caribbean Sea 70 miles off the coast of Venezuela. It was 

 received in 1883 from Faarup and Gorsira, merchants in Willemstad, 

 Curasao, through Almont Barnes, U. S. Consul. Mr. Barnes writes 

 under date of May 24, 1883: "I have to-day had boxed and will 

 send you this week some bones of a large animal which were found 

 on one of the Aves Islands, about 70 miles off the coast of Venezuela. 

 There appears to be quite a bone bed there. The Aves Islands are 

 visited at times for guano, and the bones I will send are som.e brought 

 here with smaller ones for sale merely as 'old bones.'" 



1 Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 1866, p. 293. 2 Ball. U. S. Nat. Mus. 36, p. 141, 1889. 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. 57— No. 2311. 



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