RISSO'S DOLPHIN' I\ TITF, FORTH. 255 



forwarded to the Academy by M. Risso, of Nice.* This species 

 evidently was closely allied to Cuvier's griseus. Cuvier himself 

 thought they might prove to be identical, and, more recently, 

 M. Fischer, writing on the description of another specimen, 

 stranded on the French coast, came to the conclusion that they 

 were both the samef — a view which has been fully confirmed by 

 Dr. Murie {Jour. Anal, and Phys., 1870), and by Professor 

 Flower iu his paper in the Transactions of the Zoological Society, 

 1871, where he says, in reference to the descriptions and relations 

 of these two species : — " But from the facts before us it is safer 

 to conclude that we have here an example, very rare among 

 mammals, of a species of variable and irregular coloration." 

 Dr. Gray, in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 

 1846, changed Cuvier's specific name into cuvieri, on the ground 

 that the animal was black, and not grey, but, as already stated, 

 it will be seen that this Dolphin is one liable to a great amount 

 of variation. 



The specimen which I now describe — a female — had been 

 observed swimming about the channel of the River Forth, off 

 Kincardine, for over a fortnight, and on Saturday, 15th October, 

 1904, when the fishermen, who were using a sweep or trawl net, 

 saw it near Inchbrake Light, they circled round it and brought 

 it to the shore. 



The following are a few of the measurements : — 



The general colour of the upper parts was dark bluish-black, 

 becoming more or less black on the top of the head, and shading 



* Desmarest's Mammalogie, 1822. 



t Annalea des Sciences Naturelles, 1868, p. 363. 



