Notice of a Cetaceous Animal. 301 



Art. XII. — Notice of a Cetaceous Animal supposed to he new to 

 the American coast; by William Sampson. 



Read before the New York Lyceum of Natural History, Nov. 4, 1832. 



This animal belongs to the eighth order of Mammalia which is 

 grouped under the name of Cetacea. It is naturally arranged under 

 the sub-genus Phoccena of Cuvier, which comprises the Porpoise, 

 Grampus, and a few others which are not yet sufficiently known or 

 distinguished. This genus is characterized by a single dorsal fin, 

 and the short, abrupt and rounded head without the elongated beak. 

 It has numerous teeth in each jaw. This had twenty teeth in the 

 upper and eighteen in the under jaw, increasing in length towards the 

 middle of each jaw, with a space between the teeth equal to the di- 

 ameter of the tooth, so as to admit the teeth of the opposing jaw to 

 shut into the interstice. The teeth were canine in their form and in- 

 curvated somewhat suddenly towards the point. The longest teeth 

 were about three quarters of an inch out of the jaw. 



The individual, under consideration, belongs to the species Globiceps, 

 which was first accurately described and delineated by Cuvier in the 

 Annals of the Museum. This animal, although now for the first time 

 identified here, is by no means a stranger to our shores. Ten years 

 ago a shoal, which amounted to near one hundred, came ashore on 

 Welfleet near Cape Cod. In the notice which appeared in the pa- 

 pers they were called Black Whale-fish, and were described as being 

 from ten to twenty feet long ; and it is added that they were once 

 common near these shores, but had not appeared here for many years 

 previous. It is also stated to be a peculiarity of these animals, when 

 they find themselves in shallow water, that from fright or other causes 

 they run ashore and perish. They are Common on the coast of 

 Scotland ; and Doctor Hibbert, in his account of the Western Isles, 

 has given an amusing description of a whale hunt in which hundreds 

 of these animals are captured in a day. 



This same animal has also been described and figured in the Jour- 

 nal of the Academy of Natural Sciences, but the ingenious author 

 of that description has considered it sufficiently distinct to merit a 

 new name. The only striking difference appears to be in the stric- 

 ture near the tail, which may have been an error of the engraver in 

 the endeavor to represent the peculiar carina on the upper part of 

 the body where it approaches the tail, and which terminates at the 



