146 LIFE OF FLOWER 



with by naturalists in a living or recent state, is hardly 

 conclusive as to its non-existence, as our knowledge of 

 this group of animals is lamentably deficient. We are 

 acquainted with many species, even of very large size, 

 only through isolated individuals, and the discovery of 

 others new to science is by no means an infrequent or 

 unlooked-for occurrence at the present time." 



In the opinion of the present writer, it is quite prob- 

 able that this whale may be identical with the grey 

 whale of the Pacific, described many years subsequently 

 by the late Professor Cope as Ityachianectes glaucus, in 

 which event that name will have to give place to 

 Eschrichtius robustus. 



In the year 1879^ and for some time after, Flower 

 directed his attention more especially to the dolphins 

 and porpoises, which collectively constitute the family 

 Delphinidae of naturalists, and he published a series of 

 papers on this group in the Proceedings of the Zoological 

 Society. In the volume for 1879 tnere appeared, for 

 instance, one paper on the common dolphin (Delphinus 

 delphis) ; a second on the bottle-nosed dolphin, now 

 known as Tursiops tursio ; and a third on the skull of the 

 white whale, or beluga (Delphinapterus leucas). Of far 

 greater importance was, however, the appearance in 

 1883 of a paper in the same serial on the generic 

 characters of the family Delphinidae as a whole. Special 

 attention was directed in this communication to the value 

 of the pterygoid bones, on the under surface of the skull, 

 in the classification of the family ; and characters were 

 formulated which enabled the various genera to be 

 identified, wholly or in part, by this part of the skull. 

 Flower's classification of the Delphinidae has, with some 



