OF TWO SPECIES OF BRITISH DOLPHINS. 3 
observed in the species, some individual variation being always met with, even in the 
different sides of the mouth. There are fifteen pairs of ribs, the last being unattached 
to its corresponding vertebra, and 21 lumbar and 31 caudal vertebree, making altogether, 
with the cervical and thoracic, a total of 74 vertebre. The skeleton has been pre- 
pared for the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. The stomach contained the 
partially digested remains of numerous fish, apparently mackerel. 
This species is the true Dolphin of the ancients, being the most abundant and 
characteristic species in the Mediterranean. Its exact geographical distribution has 
not yet been defined with precision, owing to the difficulty of distinguishing it from 
allied species, a difficulty which it is hoped the present illustration may in some measure 
help to overcome. It is not uncommon in the Atlantic, being well known on the 
west coast of France; and it frequently visits the English Channel, pursuing the shoals 
of pilchards and mackerel. In the Museum of the College of Surgeons is the skeleton 
of a fine adult animal, which, when alive, must have been about 7 feet long, taken 
near the beginning of the present century at Worthing. Northwards of this locality 
it appears to become rare. Van Beneden does not include it among the Cetacea 
frequenting the Belgian coast, as he was not able to find any example of its capture 
in the North Sea. Specimens, however, are occasionally met with on the coasts of 
Norway and Denmark, as mentioned by Lilljeborg and Reinhardt; and it is included 
in many of the lists of the Cetacea of the Greenland seas ; but it is doubtful whether 
some of the species of the allied genus Lagenorhynchus may not have been mistaken 
for it. 
Judging from the figure and description in Scammon’s ‘ Marine Mammals of the 
North-western Coast of North America’ (1874), Delphinus bairdii, Dall, is a closely 
allied, perhaps identical species inhabiting the North Pacific; but further observations, 
especially osteological comparisons, are required before the latter surmise can be con- 
sidered proved. 
The second species, of which I wish to offer an original and, I believe, faithful 
drawing to the Society, is Delphinus tursio of Fabricius’. The best known figure 
of this animal is that given by John Hunter in his classical ‘“‘ Observations on the 
Structure and Economy of Whales,” published in the ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ 
vol. Ixxvii. (1787). This is taken from a young animal caught, with its mother, near - 
Berkeley, in Gloucestershire, and sent to Hunter by the celebrated Edward Jenner. It 
is described in the memoir as “a species of Bottle-nosed Whale, the Delphinus delphis 
of Linneus.” It was, however, identified by Cuvier with D. ¢ursio of Fabricius, and so 
described by Prof. Owen in his editorial notes to Hunter's collected works (1837). 
1 The identification of the present well-known species with the D. twrsio of Fabricius has been questioned. 
The description in the ‘Fauna Greenlandica’ (1780, p. 49) is certainly vague and unsatisfactory; but the name 
is now so generally accepted that it would cause much confusion to attempt to change it, even if it could be 
proved to have been wrongly imposed. 
BQ 
