BOTTLE-NOSED DOLPHIN. 297 



Distinguished from the preceding genus by the beak of the 

 skull tapering moderately from the base to the extremity, the 

 shorter bony union of the two branches of the lower jaw in 

 front, the stouter teeth, of which there are from 21 to 25 pairs 

 in each jaw, and by the total number of vertebrae being only 

 64. 



THE BOTTLK-NOSED DOLPHIN. TURSIOPS TURSIO. 



1 DelpMnus tursio, Fabricius, Fauna Groenlandica, p. 49 (1780). 

 Delphinus tursio, Bonnaterre, Cdtologie, p. 21 (1789); Bell, 



British Quadrupeds, 2nd ed. p. 467(1874); Southwell, 



British Seals and Whales, p. 124 (1881). 

 Delphinus truncatiis, Montagu, Mem. Wern. Soc. vol. iii. p. 75 



(1821). 

 Tursiops tursio, Gervais, Hist. Nat. Mamm. vol. ii. p. 323 



(185s); Flower, List Cetacea Brit. Mus. p. 26 (1885). 

 Tursio truncatus, Gray, Cat. Seals and Whales, Brit. Mus. 



p. 258 (1866). 



Characters. — General colour of upper-parts black, gradually 

 shading into white beneath. Length of adult from 8 to 10 

 feet. 



Distribution. — So far as can be determined from our present 

 imperfect knowledge of the distribution of Dolphins in general, 

 it would appear that the present one is a comparatively scarce 

 species, ranging at least from the Mediterranean to the North 

 Sea. To the British coasts it is but a rare visitor, although 

 several instances of its occurrence are recorded in the second 

 edition of Bell's "British Quadrupeds" from England, Scotland, 

 and Ireland, the latest of these being a school which visited 

 Holyhead Harbour in the autumn of 1868." Since that date, 

 in the Zoologist for 1888, p. 346, Mr. W< Jeffery mentions 

 that a specimen was stranded that year on the coast of Kirk- 



