178 M. F. Cuvier DeVHistoire 



front, ou le bee est tout d'une venu avec la crane," he hints that 

 the substitution of the term Cephalorhyncus might be advisable, 

 and remarks that such a ground of distinction and division may 

 probably, on more accurate information, be necessary ! * Notwith- 

 standing this proposal of a new generic name, he applies the term 

 to an individual species, — to the Delphinus cephalorhyncus ■; — to 

 an animal which Baron Cuvier described as the Cape porpoise, and 

 which he himself had both described and figured as the Pkoccena 

 Capensis. The inaccuracy and inconvenience of referring the same 

 name to a species and a genus, as here proposed for the Cephalorhyncus, 

 is too manifest, we apprehend, to require any elucidation; but this in- 

 accuracy is onlyinkeeping with our author's mode of treating the dol- 

 phins. Generally he discourses of them as the first great subdivision 

 of the ordinary Cetacea, which he divides into seven genera, and then 

 he applies the term, par excellence, to one of those genera which, in 

 his view, comprehends somewhere between sixteen and forty-four 

 species. We need not say that much confusion, which could easily 

 be avoided, is hence the necessary consequence. 



Another instance of the boldness of M. Cuvier's criticism occurs 

 in his treatment of that group which Desmarest, Blainville, Lesson, 

 and others, had recognized under the term Heterodon. This was 

 not proposed as a generic term, but was employed to comprehend a 

 number of genera which, though not very closely connected, yet, with 

 other resemblances, had this feature in common, thattheir teeth were 

 very heterogeneous, very few, and sometimes rudimental and appa- 

 rently absent. Among other genera this group included the Nar- 

 whal, the Diodon, the HvPERCOi>ON,the Aodon, and the Ziphius, 

 which Baron Cuvier regarded as entirely toothless. After a few 

 words of criticism, our author rejects the Aodon altogether, and loses 

 sight of, or entirely metamorphoses, three out of five of the genera 

 we have just named. 



We must not leave this part of the subject without making a 

 few remarks on the author's Delphinus Roslralus. The " history of 

 the natural history" of this species is somewhat curious, and very 

 clearly illustrates the error and confusion, which, without the most 

 scrupulous care and honesty, is sure to be introduced. This animal 

 was first brought into notice, from imperfect data, in 181 7» by Ba- 

 ron Cuvier, under the trivial name of Dauphin a bee mince, + 

 and he attached to it the synonym of the Rostratus of Shaw. In 

 1823, (Oss. Fos.) he associated this bee mince with a specimen 

 sent from Lisbon by M. Geoffroy, and to the two thus connected he 

 gave the name Frontatus. Cuvier soon, however, discovered, from 



* P. 156. f Regne Animal, 1817, 378. 



