1883.] PROF. FLOWER ON THE DELPHINID.E. 4!)1 



identical, or at all events an allied species, its external characters 

 being evidently those of a Luyenorlujiichus ; but without any knt)W- 

 ledge of the form of the cranium, this is a point which cannot be 

 determined. The New-Zealand species described by Hector under 

 the name of Electra clancula, is, as stated above, a Cephalorhi/nchus, 

 as is also the Electra hectori of Van Beneden, and they have there- 

 fore nothing to do with the present group. 



Two species of this genus are so frequent in the North Atlantic, 

 especially off the British and Scandinavian coasts, that the number 

 of skeletons in museums is sufficient to determine their osteological 

 characters quite satisfactorily, although there are considerable dis- 

 crepancies in the accounts of the external appearance and coloration 

 of the specimens which have fallen under the notice of naturalists. 



L. albirostris (Gray, Ann. & Mag. N. H. 1846) has fortunately 

 had only one specific name bestowed upon it. Variations in the form 

 and colour, depending partly on age, are shown in the descriptions 

 and figures of two British specimens, both young, by U. J. Cun- 

 ningham and J. W. Clark, in P. Z. S, 187t). In the first, captured 

 off Great Grimsby, the vertebral formula is C. 7, D. 15, L. & C. 68, 

 total 90. In Clark's specimen, from Lowestoft, there are C. 7, t). 14, 

 L. 24, C. 46 = 91, the last being composed only of cartilage. The two 

 first cervical vertebrae appear always to be united, the rest being free. 

 In a skeleton in the Museum of the College of Surgeons from Norway 

 the vertebrae are C. 7, D. 14, L. & C. {^7, making a total of 88 ; 

 possibly one or two small terminal caudal vertebrae may be missing. 

 Of the second British qjecies the synonymy is involved in some 

 difficulty. Schlegel, in his ' Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiete der 

 Zoologie und vergleicbeuden Anatomic,' Heft 1, Leiden, 1841, 

 p. 23, described from the skeleton alone, received from the Faroe 

 islands, a species of Dolphin which he considered new to science, 

 under the name of Belphinus eschrichtii. He says that of the 

 external form nothing is known ; but the description of the skeleton, 

 with a figure of the skull, and the fact that the skeleton is still to 

 be seen in the Leiden Museum, are sufficient to identify the species 

 intended. At the conclusion of his description he adds: — " Vielleicht 

 gehiJrt der von Gray, Spic. Zool. i. p. 2, mit ein Paar Worten, unter 

 dem Namen D. acutus, beschriebene Delphinschiidel hierher, welche 

 Annahme besonders durch die gegebenen Masse Wahrscheiulichkeit 

 erhalt. Mit Gewissheit aber Itisst sich ohne eine geuaue Beschreibung 

 uud Abbildung dieses Schiidels nichts bestimmen." 



In 1843, Rasch described and figured (in a small folio pamphlet 

 published at Christiania) the external and principal osteological 

 characters of a Dolphin, of which a herd of twenty-three were taken 

 in the Bay of Christiania in June of the previous year, under the 

 name of Delphiiius leucopleurus. There is no doubt but that these 

 were identical with the Leiden skeleton named two years before 

 by Schlegel Z>. eschrichtii : therefore leucopleurus, otherwise a 

 very appropriate name, is not admissible. The question remains 

 between Gray's acutus and Schlegel's eschrichtii. The description 

 and figure in the ' Spicilegia ' of the skull contained in Brookes's 



