180 Dr. C. Liitken on some Odontoceti of 



fact, the late Prof. Reinhardt, from considerations Indicated 

 by him in the Journal of the Museum, had arrived at the 

 conclusion that this must be a new and undescribed species of 

 the group of Dolphins to which belongs Tur slops Uirsio, also 

 known in the North ; but he did not publish any description 

 of the species in subsequent years, during which he displayed 

 great activity in other directions, also as an author. For my 

 own part I was anxious to take up this question, partly 

 because this name of D. parvimanus^ unknown in literature, 

 and not objectively justified, must attract the attention of 

 competent visitors, and partly because some Italian zoologists 

 who had remarked it, and for whom it had a special interest, 

 had applied to me for explanations of this matter. Tlie 

 investigation was facilitated for me by the memoir which 

 Prof. Flower, Director of the Natural History Museum In 

 London, and one of the first cetologists of our time, has 

 just pulalished upon the genera of the family Delphinidas, 

 which rendered it possible to limit and define the question 

 more clearly than before. It soon became evident to me 

 that the young animal in question was a species of the genus 

 Tursiops, and that, In many respects, it might be regarded 

 as a dwarf form of the above-mentioned T. tursio. To clear 

 up the question completely it would certainly have been de- 

 sirable not to be confined to an isolated young individual, even 

 though represented, as in this case, by both the skin and the 

 skeleton ; but it is nevertheless reassuring to be able to 

 employ as terms of comparison four complete skeletons and 

 ten crania belonging to the type-species of the genus. It Is 

 seldom that researches of this nature can be founded upon 

 such abundance of material, and it Is precisely for this reason 

 that they have often given unsatisfactory results. 



I at once perceived that It is vain to seek In the characters 

 of the cranium for a certain criterion of the Independence of 

 the supposed new species. The most reliable character is 

 perhaps tlie smallness and fineness of the teeth, although 

 experience proves that we cannot absolutely trust to this. 

 This was the case also with nearly the whole skeleton ; 

 throughout in the specimens of T. tursio there appeared a 

 variation, partly dependent upon and partly independent 

 of age, which exceeded anything that we could reasonably 

 expect. The number of vertebrje, for example, varied from 

 62 to 64, and one could not count upon the number of the 

 ribs. That there is a variation dependent upon age as 

 regards, lor example, the degree of development of the 

 apophyses of the vertebrse. Is easily understood when we 

 know that these parts are not completely ossified until late, 



