96 



NEOMEBIS (?) BOBEALIS. Peale. 



Synonyms Delphinapterus lorealis, Peale, Expl. Exped., 1848. 



Delphinapterus (?) lorealis. Gray, S. & W., p. 277. 



Black, with a white lanceolate spot on the breast, which is extended 

 in a narrow line to the tail. Length, 4 feet. 

 Inhab. North Pacific Ocean. 



. " While in the water it appears to be entirely black, the white line 

 being invisible. It is remarkably quick and lively in its motions, 

 frequently leaping entirely out of the water, and, from its not having a 

 dorsal fin, is sometimes mistaken for a seal." Peale. 



Mr. Cassin remarks of this animal " it appears to us probable that it 

 does not belong to the genus Delphinapterus, or to the group of which 

 D. Peronii is the type. ' ' To which Dr. Gray add& " this species appears 

 to resemble Delphinapterus only in the absence of the dorsal fin, in which 

 respect it also resembles the Beluga, of which it is probably a species." 



From the diminutive size and general black colour of this dolphin, 

 I am inclined to place it as a species of the genus Neomeris, that is, if 

 it be not identical with the previous one, their ascertained habitats 

 being within a few degrees of the same parallels of latitude. 



I am strengthened in this supposition by the result of Dr. Gray's 

 comparison between two skulls of the N. phocsenoides, one from 

 Japan, now in the Leyden Museum, and the other from the Cape of 

 Good Hope, in the Paris collection " the skulls are very much alike, but 

 they may be two species, characterized by the number of the teeth." 



Taking it for granted that the various habitats assigned to these 

 unmistakeable animals have been correctly ascertained, I am impelled 

 to ask, why limit to within a very narrow compass the rovings of the 

 Orca capensis or pacifica, the largest and fiercest of the " gladiators" 

 of the ocean, when such extensive powers of locomotion are yielded 

 without remonstrance to the species of this diminutive group ? "I 

 doubt," writes Dr. Gray, " its (the skull of the O. pacifica, obtained 

 by Captain Delville, K.N., from the North Pacific), being from the 

 North Pacific, as I believe there is a skull of the same species in the 

 Paris Museum, collected by M. Eydoux, and said to have come from 

 Chili, South Pacific." "Why not ? This is surely straining at a gnat, 

 and swallowing a camel. 



The Delphinapterus Peronii agrees in cranial and dental structure 

 with the common dolphin, while the Neomeris phocsenoides presents on 

 these points the characteristics of the common porpoise, and, both in 

 their want of the dorsal fin and in the possession of the large spinal 

 processes of the blade-bone, approach the White Whale of the Northern 

 Seas : the group thus affording a convenient connecting link between 

 the rapacious and the more timid of the cetacea. 



