PLATANISTA. 425 



that the males had longer snouts than the females, remarks that the rostrum is 

 represented as short in proportion to the length of the animal, and that the speci- 

 men is evidently a female, whence the male should have a longer rostrum. He was 

 of opinion that Sir A. Burn.es' drawing was prohably the identical individual that 

 furnished the skull on which he founded his Flatanista indi. This is, however, 

 very doubtful, as the teeth are all represented as present in the representation of 

 the animal, and are sharp-pointed, whereas in the type the backmost teeth had in 

 all Hkelihood fallen out, and the teeth generally are much worn, and reduced 

 almost to little squares. Erom the condition of the teeth as represented in the 

 drawing, I would be disposed to regard the animal as an adolescent individual, 

 and that it would attain to a greater size ; but whether it would ever have reached 

 the dimensions of the largest female from the Ganges is, of course, an open 

 question. • 



A young Platanist from the Sutlej, presented to the Indian Museum by C. E. 

 Wakefield, Esq., measures 49 inches in its total length, and has a gape of 10 "80 inches. 

 It is a female, and in its long snout it corresponds to the females generally of the 

 Platanist of the Ganges. In the position of its dorsal fin and in the character of its 

 pectoral and caudal flippers, I do not detect that it differs from the Gangetic individuals; 

 but, of course, I am comparing a stuiled animal with a stufi:ed female from the Ganges, 

 and I cannot say anything regarding the features of the Indus animal in the flesh 

 beyond that Sir A. Burnes' drawing, which was, in all likelihood, made from a 

 freshly caught specimen, does not reveal any external characters different from 

 the dolphin of the Ganges. The only point in which the Sutlej young female differs 

 from a Gangetic female of about her own age, is the somewhat greater length of her 

 snout, and in possessing a few more teeth both above and below, but these variations 

 are not more than have been observed among undoubted examples of Gangetic 

 dolphins of one species. In the Sutlej female, the teeth are upper 5i|?, lower 5i||, 

 and in the Gangetic female vipper ~^^, lower ~^, both individuals indicating the 

 existence of variation in the number of the teeth in both jaws, and, in so doing, 

 leading us to anticipate variation in the length of the snout. 



Professor Owen,' in his " Osteological Catalogue of the Museum of the Royal 

 CoUegeof Surgeons of England," distinguishes a skull from the Indus as P.gangetica 

 var. minor, because, although it shows all the characteristics that have been pointed 

 out by Baron Cuvier and Professor Eschricht, it is of small size, the total length 

 not exceeding 12 inches, and the anterior teeth being much longer and more slender 

 and acute. "... All the facets of the occiput have coalesced, and not any of the 

 sutural unions manifest any mark of immaturity. There are twenty-one teeth on 

 the left side of the upper jaw and nineteen teeth on the right side ; but the alveolar 

 oTooves extend f mother back, indicating the former existence of teeth, or germs of 



b 



teeth wliich have been lost. There are twenty-six teeth on each side of the lower 

 jaw, behind which is a short extent of an empty alveolar groove. The teeth, in place, 



' Cat. Oss. Mus. Eoyal Coll. Surg., London, p. 449, No. 2981. 



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