DR. S. F. HARMER ON SOME MARKINGS ON A DOLPHIN. 187 
Mr. M. Dunn, to whom I mentioned the possibility that the 
scratches were due to Cephalopods, from the first discredited the 
idea ; and I have come round to the view which he suggested to 
me that they were produced by other Dolphins, by movements not 
unlike those by which a Pig uses its tusks. Mr. Dunn further 
remarks that the wounds may have been inflicted by males during 
their elforts to effect sexual intercourse ; and Mr. T. Southwell has 
expressed much the same opinion in a letter to me. 
A slight lateral movement of the lower jaw of a Dolphin would 
probably suffice to make the teeth project enough to inflict wounds 
on the skin of another animal. Measurements made on two dried 
skulls show that the points of the teeth are about 5 mm. apart, 
which is precisely the usual distance of the scratches from one 
another. 
The most remarkable series is the one shown in the figure, on 
the right side of the body, just behind the eye. This consisted of 
twenty-two scratches, beginning on the back just behind the blow- 
hole. In this position the series was 95 mm. wide. As it passes 
ventrally it diminishes rapidly in width, ending just behind the 
eye with a width of only 10 mm., the scratches being of course no 
longer individually distinct. On measuring the distance from tip to 
tip of the first twenty-two teeth of the lower jaw, and of twenty-two 
teeth further back in the upper jaw, in the region where the teeth 
project most in a lateral direction, of two dry skulls of D. delpliis 
in the Cambridge Museum, I get the following results for the two 
sides : — Lower jaw. Upper jaw. 
No. C. 124. B. 102,105 mm. 108,103 mm. 
No. C. 122. B. 100,06 mm. 103,98 mm. 
These measurements correspond very closely with the total width 
of the series of twenty-two scratches at its widest part. To explain 
its diminution in width it is only necessary to suppose that at first 
the two Dolphins were swimming side by side, but that at the end 
of the process leading to this particular series they were pulling 
apart in opposite directions. 
Although accepting Mr. Dunn's view of the nature of these 
markings as the most probable, I do not think that this gives any 
reason to doubt the accuracy of previous statements to the effect 
that skin-markings in certain Cetacea may, in some cases, be due 
to wounds inflicted by Cuttle-fishes during the process of being 
captured and devoured. 
