THE BRITISH MAMMALS : THEIR GENERA AND SPECIES. 35 



easy in its movements, owing to the atlas and axis being free. The 

 skull is long, narrow, and depressed. There are fifty vertebrae and 

 eleven pairs of ribs, of which eight are double-headed. There are nine 

 oblique teeth, widely spaced in the fore half of each jaw, irregular in 

 size and arrangement. The dorsal fin is represented by a low ridge ; 

 the flippers are short, broad, and bluntly pointed ; the tail is not 

 deeply cleft. The length over all ranges up to twenty feet. The young 

 are blackish, becoming in turu mottled, then yellowish, and then 

 white. The White Whale is generally gregarious, and feeds on 

 cephalopods, crustaceans, and fishes, mostly salmon. It is the 

 "porpoise" from which comes much of the porpoise-hide when 

 that hide does not come from the horse. 



Eelphlnus. Plate xxvi. CRT ACE A. 



71. delphis, COMMON DOLPHIN. Forehead sloping gradually ; beak 



long, narrow, and abruptly projecting ; jaws of equal 

 length. 



The Dolphin is a southern species wandering into British waters 

 after the shoals of pilchards and herrings. It is generally caught 

 in the Channel, and rarely off the northern coasts. In colour it is 

 black above and white below, with black flippers and black tail, and 

 pale brown stripes and grey on the flanks, whatever other tints 



r 



COMMON DOLPHIN. 

 (Delphinus delphis.) 



there may be being apparently due to iridescence. The flippers are 

 narrow arid pointed, the second and third digits being large, the 

 others rudiinental. The palatal surface of the maxillaries is deeply 

 grooved ; there are from forty-seven to sixty-five pairs of small 

 teeth all along the beak; and there are from seventy-two to 

 seventy-four vertebrae, and fourteen or fifteen ribs. The length 

 does not exceed eight feet. Young dolphins have a moustache 

 of about half a dozen hairs on each side. Notwithstanding the 

 beak being thicker below, the profile of the head, with the gently 

 curving forehead, large eye, and prominent beak, is not unlike that 

 of the raven, If this be the dolphin of the heralds a.nd sculptors. 



