344 



WHALES 



Figure i8y. The Indian Porpoise, Neomeris phocaenoides (Cuv.), is an almost entirely 

 black animal and lacks a dorsal Jin. {Kellogg, 1940.) 



there are few obstacles to their free movement. Most cosmopohtan of all 

 are Bottlenose Whales, Killers, Cuvier's Dolphins, Pigmy Sperm Whales, 

 False Killers, and Risso's Dolphins, the last three of which are, however, 

 rarely found in coastal waters. While little is known of the migratory habits 

 of most of them, Bottlenose Whales in the N. Atlantic, for one, are known 

 to migrate north in the spring, sometimes as far as Spitsbergen. In the 

 autumn they have been seen off the Cape Verde Islands, our only indica- 

 tion of how far south they may go. It is quite possible that some of them 

 reach the equator, there to intermingle with the southern species, but we 

 have no reliable information to this effect. What we do know is that, during 

 the autumn migration, they occasionally cross the North Sea. No less than 

 fourteen of the seventeen Bottlenose Whales that have been washed ashore 

 in Holland since 1584 were discovered during August and September; 

 the last incident was reported from Flushing (19th August, 1958) when a 

 living Bottlenose was released from the wreckage of a ship by a diver. 



The Pilot Whale and the Bottlenose Dolphin also have a fairly universal 

 distribution, at least if we consider all their different types as belonging to 

 the same species. Actually, Globicephala melaena, for instance, i.e. the 

 N. Atlantic and Mediterranean Pilot Whale which occurs in European 

 waters and also off the East coast of America, from Greenland right down 

 to V'irginia, is different in external appearance from Globicephala macro- 

 rhyncha, which has much shorter pectoral fins and which has been observed 

 from Virginia down to the Gulf of Mexico and off the West Indies. The 

 N. Pacific Pilot Whale {Globicephala scanvnoni) also has short pectoral fins. 

 The Southern Pilot Whale, which f:)ccurs in all waters south of 30° S. 

 and along the Pacific coast of S. America up to the equator, appears 

 to be identical with the N. Atlantic type (Davies, i960). This northern 

 strain of the Atlantic Pilot W'hale can be found close to the Canadian 

 coast during most summers, but keeps more to the open seas in winter. 



