THE SHORT-BEAKED DOLPHINS 1229 



color is dark gray above, and grayish white below, with the head yellowish white, 

 and the flukes marked with five or more narrow and nearly vertical lines, placed at 

 almost equal distances from one another. In length the animal measures about thir- 

 teen feet when full grown. 



Risso's dolphin appears to have an almost world-wide distribution, 

 although not occurring in the polar seas. It has been recorded from 

 the North Atlantic and North Pacific Oceans, the North Sea, the Mediterranean, the 

 Cape of Good Hope, and Japan. Several examples have been taken on the British 

 coasts. One of these was killed at Puckaster, Isle of Wight, in 1843; while a sec- 

 ond was captured in a mackerel net near the Eddystone Lighthouse in 1870. A 

 third specimen sold in Billingsgate market in the latter year was probably taken in 

 the Channel; and a fourth, also caught in the Channel, near Chichester, was kept 

 alive for a day in the Brighton Aquarium in 1875. The fifth example was caught 

 in 1886 in the same manner, and near the same locality as the second, In the au- 

 tumn of 1889 a shoal of nine or ten of these Cetaceans were observed off Hi-llswick, 



RISSO'S DOLPHIN. 

 (From True, Bulletin of the U. S. National Museum, 1889.) 



Shetland, of which six were captured by fishermen, and in 1892 a single specimen 

 was taken in the Solway. Beyond the fact that its chief food consists of cuttlefish, 

 nothing definite appears to be known as to the habits of this species. 



THE SHORT-BEAKED DOLPHINS 

 Genus Lagenorhynchus 



Under the general title of short-beaked dolphins may be included a group of 

 several small species, serving to connect the beakless forms with those furnished 

 with distinct beaks, and remarkable for their strongly-contrasting coloration. They 

 are generally characterized by the head having a short and not very well-defined 

 plowshare-like beak, although in one species the head is pointed and beakless. 

 The fin and flippers are of moderate size, and the tail has very prominent ridges. 

 The teeth are variable in size and number, the beak of the skull is flat, and not 

 longer than the hinder part of the same, and the union between the two branches of 

 the lower jaw is short. The coloration takes the form of two light-colored areas of 

 variable size on the sides, separated from one another by irregular, oblique dark 



