﻿( 170 ) 



IV. • 



A71 Account of a new Species ^Delphinus, 

 An Inhabitant of the Ganges. 



BY DOCTOR ROXBURGH. 



LINNtEUS, in his arrangement of the animal 

 kingdom, feparates the Narval, Whales^ Cacho- 

 leiii and Dolphins, comprifing the tribe of cetaceous 

 animals, from the fifhes, and places them in the clafs 

 Mammalia, becaufe they fuckle their young. This 

 mode has been by fome deemed unnatural ; but as it 

 renders the arrangement methodical, eafy, and con- 

 fpicuous, it is now generally followed.* The animals 

 of the cetaceous order of the clafs Mammalia, to which 

 belongs the fpecies now to be defcribed, are charac- 

 terized by the following circumflances. They in- 

 habit the ocean, or large rivers. They have no feet. 

 They breathe through a fiflulous opening on the 

 upper part of the head. They have two peroral fins, 

 and an horizontally flatted tail. They copulate and 

 fuckle their young like quadrupeds; which they re- 

 femble alfo in the llrutture and ufe of their internal 

 parts. 



The four genera compofing this order, are diflin- 

 guiflied chieliy by the teeth. That to which this new 

 fpecies belongs, is deuominsiled Belphinus ; theeflential 

 character of the fpecies thereof is ; Thev are furniflied 

 vviih bony teeth in each jaw ; whereas the other three 

 genera have either no teeth, or have them in one jaw 

 only. Gmelin's lalt edition of the Syjtema Naturee of 

 LiNN.EUs, mentions only four dilHntt fpecies, viz. Pho~ 



C(xna. 



* Pennant, In bis Britifh Zoologv, make; a different arrange- 

 ment ; by which he places the Cele ariionjfll the HHies, diftributing 

 the whole into three grand divifions. "I'lK Cetaceous-fiih. 2d, Car- 

 tilaginoiis-fifti. And 3d, Bony-fifli. But in the lubdivifion of this 

 laft grand clafs, he follows Linn>£US, 



