400 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 1892. 



The Grey Boar, it seems, is in future to be known as Sas cristcttus, 

 and distinguislied from, the Wild Boar of Europe by its longer mane 

 and the proportionally greater size and complexity of the last molar 

 in each jaw. The geographical distribution of these two species is 

 not settled. Mr. Blanford does not believe in the 40-inch boar, 

 and is sceptical about the 12 -inch tusk. 



He allows only two other Indian species, S. Andamanensis , which 

 grows to twenty inches high, and 8iis Salvanius, the pigmy, not of 

 Nepal, which barely attains a foot in height. 



The EippopotamidcB, so lately reported from Bannu, were, our 

 author says, "probably contemporaries of man, a worked flint 

 having been, found in the Nerbudda gravels that contain bones of 

 Hippopotamus." 



Hugh Falconer thought that the Sanskrit " Water Elephant " 

 was an Hippopotamus. Mr. Blanford thinks that he was a river 

 porpoise. It seems probable enough that he was neither, nor any- 

 thing else in life, but of the nature of the Gaelic "Water-horse,'' 

 still reported from Irish and Highland lakes. 



We come now to the Indian Cetacea, of which very little is 

 known. Something had been said about them in these pages, by the 

 present writer, before the publication of the work under review. 

 No "■ Right whale " without the dorsal fin cruises in Indian waters, 

 but it seems probable that our Fin-backed whales {Balcenoj^tera) are 

 identical with Atlantic species, and that, in fact, the Fin-backs are 

 cosmopolitan. They are not common in the neighbourhood of 

 Bombay. The present writer has twice seen them within 30 miles 

 of the Prongs, and is aware of about a dozen cases of their being 

 stranded on the coasts of Tanna and Kolaba. 



To the North-west, South, and West of Bombay, they are much 

 more common, but do not seem to enter the Gulf of Cambay. 



The Sperm Whales or Cachalots are not recorded from these seas 

 at all, though at least two species have been seen in the Bay of 

 Bengal. One of these, Cogia hreviceps, is little more than a porpoise, 

 and is followed by the porpoises. 



The first of these is of some interest to us here, as a good deal of 

 the matter collected by Mr. Blanford in respect of it is ours, and 



