BRITISH MAMMALS 
Genus Mesoplodon. 
SOWERBY'S WHALE. 
Mesoplodon bidens, Sowerby. 
Plate 46. 
In this genus, comprising several species — only two of which are 
British — the snout is elongated in the form of a beak, and in Sowerby's 
Whale the adult male is characterised by a single pair of pointed teeth 
placed rather far back in the lower mandible towards the middle of the 
jaw, while in True's Beaked Whale they are situated at the extremity 
of the lower mandible. Sowerby's Whale measures from 15 to 18 feet 
in length, and in colour is usually a bluish black all over the body, with 
many criss-cross lines and scratches on its surface, caused by the tentacles of 
cuttlefish. 
The following is the description of the colour in a female specimen 
stranded on the Norfolk coast at Overstrand, near Cromer, in December 
1892, by the late Thomas Southwell and Dr. Harmer — now Sir Sidney 
Harmer — in the Annals and Magazine of Statural History (ser. 6, 
vol. xi., April 1893) : " Previous observers have described this animal 
as being lighter beneath than above. This was distinctly not the case 
in the specimen under consideration, which was of a uniform black 
colour (with the slight exception shortly to be mentioned), the skin being 
very smooth and polished, as has been described in other instances ; and 
the fishermen in charge who had assisted in its capture informed us that 
there was a perceptible bluish tint on the skin in a good light. 
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