250 MAMMALIA OF INDIA. 
FAMILY DELPHINID/—THE DOLPHINS OR PORPOISES. 
GENUS PLATANISTA—THE RIVER DOLPHINS. 
A globular head with a long, compressed and, towards the end, spoon- 
shaped rostrum or snout ; flippers short, broad and triangular; a long 
body of moderate girth ; no back fin, but a slight elevation which takes 
its place. There is a decided depression between the head and body on 
the region of the neck ; the eye is remarkably small, so much so as to be 
Platanista Gangetica. 
hardly perceptible ; in an adult of eight feet long the whole eye-ball is no 
bigger than a pea, and the orifice of the ear is like a pin-hole. 
The skull has peculiar features. ‘‘’The apparently rounded skull behind 
the snout has broad, thick zygomatic arches, and above and in front of 
these the cheek-bones (maxi//e) each send forwards and inwards a 
great roughened sheet of bone or crest, which forms a kind of open 
helmet. In the large hollow between-these bony plates, 4nd somewhat 
behind, are situated the nasal orifices, which are slightly awry ” (AZurie).* 
Professor Flower’s notice of the skull (‘ Osteology of the Mammalia’) is 
thus worded: “The orbit is extremely small, the temporal fossa large, 
and the zygomatic processes of the squamosal are greatly developed. 
From the outer edge of the ascending plates of the maxillz, which lie 
over the frontals, great crests of bone, smooth externally, but reticulated 
and laminated on their inner surface, rise upwards, and, curving inwards, 
nearly meet in the middle line above the upper part of the face.” 
* See Appendix B for illustration. 
