158 T'ransactions. — Zoology. 



whaling sliips wliicli 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 havS 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 ocea,n. 

 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 FORSTBRI. 



Porster's Dolphin. 



D. forsteri, Gray, I.e. 248. 



PI. II. and III. 



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 specieF*, 

 though resembling most nearly the Cape Dolphin (Z>. longirostris, Gray, 

 i.e. 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- 

 6fths the total length, and three times the width at the notch ; inter maxillaries 

 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 j 

 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 

 half the width of beak at the notch ; Palate with a gi^oove on each side, deej) 

 behind and shallow in front. 



A. — Skull, Waikanae beach. B. — Skull, Wanganui beach, from Rev. 

 R. Taylor, F.G.S. 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. 



