158 Transactions.—Zoology. 
whaling ships which cruise in the open sea, but rarely approach the coast like 
the Black Whale. Several teeth of Sperm Whales are in the Museum, and 
also other varieties of smaller sized teeth of several forms, chiefly found on 
the east coast of Wellington, which have not yet been referred to any species. 
Dieffenbach mentions a Sperm as having been brought ashore in Tory 
Channel, respecting which Mr. Wilson, an old whaler now living at Waikanae, 
informs me he was one of the party that secured this very whale, and that it 
was a dead animal, in such an advanced state of decomposition that nearly 
all the bones had dropped out of the flesh. He states that such boneless 
bodies of whales are not uncommonly met with drifting about in the ocean. 
The head of a large Sperm Whale used to lie in the sand-hills south of 
Waikanae, but was broken up by the natives some years ago for the sake of 
the teeth. 
DELPHINUS FORSTERI. 
Forster’s Dolphin. 
D. forsteri, Gray, Le. 248. 
Pl. If. and HL 
The skull of this species, which was founded on a drawing by Forster, has 
not been described, but I provisionally refer to it two skulls obtained on the 
west coast of this province, which do not agree with any described species, 
though resembling most nearly the Cape Dolphin (Ð. longirostris, Gray, 
Le. 241), but differing from it in having a much shorter beak and fewer teeth. 
Skull rounded behind ; beak rather linear, depressed on the sides, three- 
fifths the total length, and three times the width at the notch ; intermaxillaries 
narrow, forming a prominent hard ridge, and united for a third of their 
length to form a bony tube; maxillaries with a third ridge in front of the 
notch ; hinder wing with a flat area over the orbit, and bent up posteriorly ; 
supra-occipital crest prominent ; forehead sloping ; blowers small, equal to 
middle width of beak ; nasal processes prominent; triangle rough, without 
defined margins, not extending to the teeth ; symphysis of lower jaw equal to 
halfthe width of beak at the notch ; Palate with a groove on each side, deep 
behind and shallow in front. 
A.—Skull, Waikanae beach. B.—Skull, Wanganui beach, from Rev. 
R. Taylor, F.G.8. C.—The skull of a porpoise, captured in the South 
Atlantic in June, 1872, during the voyage of the “ Electra” from London to 
New Zealand, agrees with the above in every respect, except in the teeth 
~ which are fewer in number. The teeth are quite perfect, and are small and 
= incurved. This specimen has been taken to England by James Brogden, Esq. 
