NEW SPECIES OF DELPHINUS. 79 



pus, theporpesse, and the dolphin, the dissimilarity 

 is so great, that there is no hesitation in deciding the 

 distinction ; all those animals being furnished with 

 teeth more or less sharp or conic, projecting above 

 the gums, and sufficiently distant, to admit those of 

 the opposite jaw to lock in between them, when the 

 mouth is closed*. In the Delphinus gladiator, (de- 

 scribed by La Cepede in his Histoire des Cetacees, 

 from a specimen taken in the Thames in the year 

 1793, said to have been communicated by Sir Joseph 

 Banks, accompanied by a drawing, and lately intro- 

 duced into the British Fauna, in the last edition of 

 Pennant's British Zoology,) the snout is said to be 

 short, and the teeth sharp ; so that any further com- 

 parison with this species would be useless to mark a 

 distinction. 



Another species of Delphinus is mentioned by Dr 

 Shaw in his General Zoology, by the title of ros- 

 tratus, the jaws of which appear to be the only parts 

 that have come under examination. All we obtain 

 from the description, is, that the jaws are extremely 

 narrow in proportion to their length, which is about 

 two feet, and that the teeth are small, not numer- 

 ous, distant, and shaped like the molares of quadru- 

 peds. From this very imperfect description, no- 

 thing decisive can be drawn, except that the atte- 



* So described by most authors, but there is some confusion 

 about the distance of the teeth. I have seen an instance of the 

 porpesse, where the teeth could not intersect each other. 



