270 DELPHINIDiE. 



4. Lagenorhynchus acutns. Eschrieht's Dolphin. 



Body-^ — ? 



Teeth f| ; nose of skull half its length, and nearly twice as long 

 as ■wide at the notch ; lower jaw obliquely truncated in front. 



Phocaena acutus, Grai/, in Srookes's Cat. Mm. 39, 1828. 

 Delphinus (Grampus) acutus, Gray, Spie. Zool. 2, 1828 (from a skull) ; 



Fischer, Syn. Mamm. 666. 

 Delphinus leucopleurus, var,, Nilsson, Skand. Favma, i. 598. 

 Lagenorhynchua acutus, Gray, Zool. F. Sf T.ZQ; Cat. Cetac. B. M. 



1850, 101 ; P. Z. S. 1864, 239. 

 Delphinus (Lagenorhynchus) Eschrichtii, Van JBeneden, Nbuv. M6m. 



Acad. a. Brux. xxxii. 31. 

 Delphinus Eschrichtii, SchUgel, Abhandl. 122. 1. 1, t. 2. f. 4, t. 4. f. 6 ; 



M. Clausen, Dissert, de Lagenorhynchis, 4io, KiUes, 1853 ; EschricM, 



Compt. Bend. Acad. Sci. 1852, 12th July. 



Inhab. North Sea, Faroe Islands (Esehricht). 



Skulls and skeleton in the Leyden Museum : — Length, entire, 

 -7 in. 2 Un. ; of skull, 16 lines. 



This species was first described by me from a skull in Brookes's 

 Museum, from Orkney, which is now at Leyden, and M. Schlegel has 

 described and figured a skull from a skeleton sent from the Faroe 

 Islands. It differs from the other species of the genus in the nose 

 of , the skuU being more slender and the teeth more numerous. The 

 teeth-series, as in L. Elecira and L. Asia, do not reach to the notch 

 which separates the beak of the skull from the brain-caviiy. 



Professor Esehricht informs me that the animal is very like D. Im- 

 eoplewrus, and Professor NUsson considers them to be the same. 



The skuU in Mr. Brookes's collection was 15 inches long, the 

 head 7, the beak being 8 inches, and it was 4| inches wide at its 

 base ; the teeth small and slender ; the beak long, attenuated, acute, 

 convex on the sides, and flat in the centre above, and with a deep 

 central groove. The teeth ^ . |^, small, slender. The hones in 

 fi-ont of the inner nostrils kealed. 



The peculiar character of this species is, that there are 82 or 83 

 vertebrae ; the muzzle is narrower, the shoulder-blade narrower, a 

 phalange to the thximb, the atlas and axis are anchylosed to the third 

 and fourth cervical vertebrae by the spinous apophysis, and the sixth 

 cervical alone has an inferior transverse process. Teeth |^^.^- Fa« 

 Beneden, I. c. 31. 



Delphinus Eschrichtii (Schlegel, Abh. 23. 1. 1, t. 2. f. 4, t. 4. f. 5) 

 is described from a skeleton from the Faroe Islands. Length 7 feet 

 4 inches. Teeth |f . 



A male was thrown ashore on the 20th December, 1863, at 

 Flushing, now stuffed in the Museum at Ghent. Vertebrae 80: 

 cervical 7, dorsal 15, lumbar 19, caudal 39. The first and second 

 are soldered by their bodies and spinous apophyses ; the third and 

 fourth only by the spinoiis processes; the fifth, sixth, and seventh 

 are free ; the sixth has two irregular processes on the lower part of 

 the sides, which are directed forwards. Teeth ||^, visible. In 

 the upper jaw five were hidden in the membrane, one or two of 



