The Occurrence of Risso’s Dolphin in the Shetland Seas. 193 
September 1889 I heard from my former pupil, Mr Charles 
Anderson, M.B., of Hillswick, Shetland, to whom I have been 
indebted on several occasions for specimens of Cetacea, that 
a school of dolphins, nine or ten in number, had been chased 
off Hillswick by the fishermen, and that six of them—four 
females and two males—had been captured. From the 
general colouring and the peculiar light streaks and spots 
scattered over the surface of the body, from the shape of the 
snout, the large relative size of the dorsal fin, the absence of 
teeth in the upper jaw, and the presence of only three or four 
in the mandible, and from the length of the animals, which 
varied from 8 feet 7 inches to 10 feet 5 inches, Dr Anderson 
was led to believe that these Cetacea were Risso’s dolphins. 
This important information he at once telegraphed to the 
Anatomical Museum of the University, so that we were 
enabled to secure the crania of four specimens and the 
carcases of two others. Owing to the steamer not calling at 
Hillswick for a fortnight after the capture, and the objection 
made by the captain to convey, on account of their odour, 
the entire carcases, they had to be eviscerated, cut into 
segments and packed in salt in barrels. I was unable, there- 
fore, to obtain either drawings of or a complete view of these 
animals; but there could be no doubt, from the general form 
and from the marks on the skin, that they had closely 
resembled in appearance, and were the same species as, the 
Grampus griseus, so beautifully figured by Professor Flower 
in his memoir already referred to. This conclusion was 
confirmed by the anatomical examination to which they 
have been subjected. 
A customary habitat of Risso’s dolphin would seem to be 
the Mediterranean, in which sea it has been taken as far east 
as the Adriatic and as far south as the coast of Algiers and 
Morocco, whilst Risso stated that it frequented the northern 
shore about Nice at the pairing season, and Paul Gervais has 
recorded the presence of a school in the mouths of the Rhone. 
Professor P. J. van Beneden, in his “ Histoire naturelle des 
Delphinides des Mers d’Europe,”! gives it a much wider 
distribution, for specimens, he says, have been captured at 
1 Bruxelles, 1889, 
