164 Prof. Eschricht on the Gangetic Dolphin. 



About the time of the publication of Cuvier's * Regne Animal/ 

 M. Blainville, during his stay in London, saw a pair of dolphin 

 jaws in the Hunterian Museum, no doubt those on which Shaw 

 had founded his D. rostratus, which was likewise Blainville's 

 opinion, although he thought fit to make a new species of them, 

 under the name of D. Shawensis*. The origin of these bones 

 we learn from a little memoir of Sir Everard Hornet, wno had re- 

 ceived them from Sir Joseph Banks in ] 801, and had placed them 

 in the Museum, without further notice, until the year 1818, when 

 accidentally meeting with Roxburgh's memoir in the ' Asiatic 

 Researches/ he at once discovered that the bones belonged to the 

 Ganges dolphin. From this time Shaw's D. rostratus became 

 merged in Lebeck's D. gangeticus, and our acquaintance with the 

 remarkable animal proceeded rapidly. Sir Everard found that 

 Shaw's description of the teeth corresponded so little with the 

 reality, that he was almost led to suppose that it had reference 

 to the teeth of some other animal. He furnished a description 

 of them, which, though unquestionably very incomplete, is of 

 importance, inasmuch as, by means of the elegant figures, we 

 have a fair representation of the remai'kable changes which they 

 undergo by age. They are not, however, as the author main- 

 tains, originally formed within the gums in whales, growing 

 thence in two directions, partly through the gums in the shape 

 of a compressed cone, covered with enamel, and partly downwards 

 towards the jaw-bone itself; but rather, as is the case among 

 mammalia in general, they become first ossified at the apex while 



of H.M.S. Erebus and Terror during the years 1839-1843, London, 1846, 

 4to, parts 3, 4, 5. Mammalia, p. 45, 46). He concludes by saying, " it can 

 scarcely be a Beluga ;" and this would be very right, had the question been 

 a living subject instead of a very crude drawing, which Duhamel states 

 to represent a white dolphin of Canada, 12 feet long, with a very short 

 snout and vaulted forehead. On inspection it will be seen that the 

 drawing wants a dorsal fin, and that the pectoral fins are quite short and 

 broad ; and if it is remembered, that at the time Duhamel received the 

 drawing, the whitefish had not yet been admitted into the system, and was 

 consequently new to the Parisian naturalist, whose friend in Canada might 

 reasonably have imagined that a mere outline would be acceptable, without 

 anticipating the curiosity which it would excite among European natu- 

 ralists, — I shall hardly be considered too bold, if I take the figure to repre- 

 sent " simply a whitefish, whose short and blunt snout the inexperienced 

 draughtsman had mended a little." (Zoologisch-anatomische, &c. Zoolo- 



fical and anatomical researches concerning the Northern Whales. Leipzig, 

 849, 4to, p. 52 e.) 

 * Nouveau Diet, d'hist. nat. appliquee aux arts, a l'agric, &c. par une 

 Societe des Naturalistes et d'Agriculteurs. Paris, 1816-1819, 2nd ed., art. 

 Dauphin. [I regret I have not had access to this work, which does not 

 exist at Copenhagen, as far as I know.] 



t A description of the teeth of the Delphinus gangeticus ; read 4th June, 

 1818, in part 1. of Phil. Transact, for that year, p. 417-419. pi. 21. 





