6 



BOTTLE-NOSED DOLPHIN IN THE HUMBER. 



JOHN CORDEAUX, M.B.O.U,, 

 Gieat Cotes, Ulceby, Lincolnshire. 



This species (Deiphinus tursid) is sufficiently rare in British waters 

 to deserve a notice. On Saturday evening, August 25th, 1888, two 

 came up the Haven at Tetney, but went out again with the tide. 

 On the next morning they again came up, and entering the lock-pit, 

 were speedily shut in, and attacked by an excited mob of men and 

 boys, armed with guns, pitch-forks, and boat-hooks. I am told the 

 poor creatures showed great tenacity, and did not succumb before 

 they were fairly covered with wounds. Mr. G. H. Caton Haigh, on 

 hearing from his keepers of the capture, at once went to Tetney, 

 and was fortunate in obtaining the two heads. The bodies had 

 already been cut up and sold for manure. He has kindly given me 

 the following information: — The largest measured 10 ft. in length, 

 the other 7 ft. or 8 ft. ; the colour was black above, dirty greyish- 

 white below, brighter in the smaller animal — the white extended to 

 the point of the lower jaw. Subsequently I had an opportunity of 

 seeing the skulls in the shop of Mr. Jefferies, at Grimsby. One is 

 apparently that of a young animal, with teeth conical and pointed, 

 twenty-three above and twenty-five below. The intermaxillaries are 

 convex above, and form two well-marked ribs on the upper part of 

 the rostrum, as described in Bell's ' British Quadrupeds.' The 

 second skull is that of an adult, and the teeth are more or less 

 truncated and worn at the point. The foot-plate of the skull in 

 ' British Quadrupeds,' p. 469, unless it is taken from that of a very 

 old animal, scarcely represents the teeth, making them too broad and 

 square ; in both these specimens they are more or less conical and 

 pointed, although considerably worn down in the larger of the two. 

 When the jaw is shut they close not unlike the teeth of a rat-trap, 

 and have a most formidable appearance. 



These two Dolphins seem to have formed part of a small school 

 seen off the coast two or three days previously; two others were 

 stranded on the high sand near the Haven mouth, and the bodies 

 were boiled down to get the oil ; a fifth was found by a fisherman, 

 and taken into Grimsby. 



Two were caught at the Spurn in September 1S79, and described 

 by Mr. E. Howarth in The Naturalist (September 1880, vi. 26), and 

 are also recorded by Messrs. Roebuck and Clarke in their ' Hand- 

 book of Yorkshire Vertebrata,' p. 11. 



November 1st, 1888. 



Naturalist, 



