10 MAMMALS OF EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS 



ton Society of Natural History. I believe the only other 

 specimen ever taken and recorded on the Atlantic Coast 

 was at Nantucket, Mass. in 1867. 



Family Delphinidae. 



White whale. Delphinapterus leucas (Pallas). 



Length of adult 10 or 11 feet. Head rounded, neck 

 visibly narrowed. Flipper small. No fin on back. Color 

 of adult entirely white, immature mottled with gray . A 

 very rare straggler from the North; one record only. One 

 seen by Dr. C. W. Townsend off the end of Cape Ann on 

 Nov. 13, 1904 * See Plate 2. 



Killer Whale; Orca. Orcinus orca (Linne). 



Length, 15 to 20 feet. Forehead flat, color, Black above, 

 White beneath, in strong contrast; back fin extremely 

 long, sometimes reaching the length of 6 feet in the males; 

 flippers rather short and rounded. A white spot above 

 the eye and two white stripes on the sides. There is no 

 record for Essex County, but they have been reported in 

 Massachusetts Bay. 



Blackfish; Social whale; Pilot whale. Globiceph- 

 ala melas (Traill). 



This species usually travels in large schools, sometimes 

 numbering two or three hundred. A large school was 

 sighted off Monument Beach in September, 1907. The 

 school was surrounded by boats and driven into shallow 

 water where a number of them were killed. This school 

 contained about 45 individuals, of one of which I made a 

 cast which measured 14 feet in length and was an average 

 sized specimen. The record for the county is of a specimen 

 taken in Beverly Harbor, October, 1873 by Capt. C. C. Os- 

 good and J. W. Larrabee. The skeleton of this is on ex- 

 hibition in the Peabody Museum. Description: Teeth, 10 

 in each jaw. Color black on back, a small area of white 

 beneath which varies greatly in size and shape. Easily 

 identified by small size, extra long flipper and its numerous 

 teeth. See Plate 4. 



•See Townsend's Birds or Essex County. 



