1883.] PROF. FLOWER ON THE DELPHINID.E. 503 



Gray (Zool. Erebus and Terror, p. 42), first described under the name 

 of D. delphis by Forster, a copy of whose original drawing was pub- 

 lished by Gray {op. cif. tab. 24). D. fulvo-fasciatus, Hombron and 

 Jacquinot (Voy. au Pole Sud, Zool. p. 37, pi. xxi. fig. 1), also appears 

 to have been founded on the same form. 



Through the kindness of Mr. W. L. Crowther, of Hobart Town. 

 Tasmania, the Museum of the College of Surgeons has lately received 

 a fine series of skeletons of the common species of Dolphin of the 

 seas around that island, probably that just mentioned, and they are 

 in every character identical with those of D. delphis of our coasts ; at 

 least, after careful examination and allowing for individual variation, 

 I can find nothing to separate them. 



In the United States department of the International Fisheries 

 Exhibition of this year, casts of a Dolphin from the Atlantic coast 

 of America were exhibited, which though not nresentins: the brisht 

 yellowish tmt or the variety of coloration of the English specimen 

 figured in the Transactions of the Society, quite come within the range 

 of vnriation shown by Fischer. I have had also, through the kindness 

 of the Commissioners, an opportunity of carefully comparing the skull 

 sent to the Exhibition, with one of corresponding age and size from 

 our seas, and can detect no difference. This is of course what might 

 be expected ; but it is more surprising to find the same form repre- 

 sented in so widely removed a region of the world as the North 

 Pacific ; at least this must be our assumption until any specific 

 distinction has been pointed out between D. bairdii, Dall, and D. 

 de/phis. Our knowledge of the former is at present very defective, 

 as in the description of its osteological characters appended to 

 Scammon's work, although a perfect skeleton is said to exist in the 

 Smithsonian Institution, and a 4to page of small type is devoted to 

 a detailed description of the cervical vertebrae, even the number of 

 the other vertebrae is not stated, and no comparison of the skull or 

 other parts is instituted between it and those of _D. delphis, to which 

 it is so obviously closely allied, but only with other Pacific forms 

 with which it has no special affinity. 



It is, however, not at all improbable that there are several modifica- 

 tions of this type of Dolphin, that may be considered of specific value. 



In the British Museum Collection is one skull marked D. major 

 (Gray, Cat. Seals and Whales B. M. 1866, p. 396), of unknown 

 habitat, considerably larger than any of the others, which other- 

 wise it closely resembles. Its length is 523 mm. (the largest in the 



collection referred to D. delphis being 4/0 mm.) ; it has ^5^^ teeth. 



Another form represented by three specimens in the same collec- 

 tion, D.janira (Gray, Zool. Erebus et Terror, p. 41, pi. 23), is probably 

 distinct, being of smaller size than D. delphis, and with a wider head 

 and shorter rostrum. The number of teeth is about 44. From this 

 D. pomecgrn, Owen (Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. vi. p. 23), from Madras, 

 appears to me to present no marked distinguishing characters. 



A still more distinct form is represented by a skull in the Paris 

 collection, called D. longirostris, and figured under that name by 



