178 M. F. Cuvier DeTHistoire 
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 Phoccena 
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 only in keeping 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, that their 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 HypEROODON,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 Rostratus. 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 1817, by Ba- 
ron Cuvier, under the trivial name of Dauphin a bee mince, t 
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 Fronlatus. Cuvier soon, however, discovered, from 
* P. 156. f ] % ne Animal, 1817, 378. 
