A NEW RIVER-DOLPHIN FROM CHINA 



By GERRIT S. MILLER, Jr. 



(With 13 Plates) 



The skull and cervical vertebrae of a river-dolphin killed in Tung 

 Ting Lake, about 600 miles up the Yangtze River, China, have re- 

 cently been obtained by the National Museum from Mr. Charles M. 

 Hoy. The following account of the animal has been given by Mr. 

 Hoy in letters and in conversation : " Although I lived in China for 

 several years I never saw this animal except in Tung Ting Lake and 

 around its mouth. The natives give it the name Peh Ch'i, which they 

 tell me means ' white flag ', because the dorsal fin, which they liken to 

 a flag, is so prominent when the animal comes to the surface to 

 breathe. The sudden appearance of a school of these whitish dolphins 

 close to a small boat is very startling. To the best of my knowledge 

 this animal is found in large numbers only around the mouth of the 

 Tung Ting Lake. In winter when the water of the lake is so low that 

 there is scarcely more than the river channel left they are easily seen 

 and are found in great numbers in bunches usually of three or four, 

 but occasionally of as many as 10 or 12 individuals. They are often 

 seen in shallow water working up the mud in their search for fish. 

 The one I killed had about two quarts of catfish in its stomach. 

 \\' hen shot it gave a cry like that of a water-buffalo calf. In summer 

 the water rises to a height of 48 feet above its winter level. The. 

 mountain streams feeding the lake are then full, and the dolphins 

 disappear. The natives say that in the late spring when the lake 

 is rising the dolphins make their way up the small, clear rivers, and 

 that these are their breeding grounds." 



Contrary to what might have been anticipated this cetacean is not 

 Sotalia chinensis. It is one of the " anomalous " porpoises of the 

 family Iniidce.^ Well represented and widely distributed in the 

 Miocene and Pliocene this group is now so nearly extinct that only 

 two livine: remnants are known : Inia zeoffrensis in the Amazon and 



^ See True, Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc, Vol. 47, p. 391, IQ08. 



Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 68, No. 9 



