D2 
WHALE ROOM. 
its immediate allies. There are casts of the entire animal and 
of the heads of this species and also of the allied Bottlenose 
Dolphin, Tursiops tursio, from the Atlantic coast of North 
America. liisso^’s Dolphin, Grampus piseus, which is about 
13 feet long, with no teeth in the upper, and but few in the 
lower jaw, and of very variable colour, is occasionally met 
with off our coasts. On the wall are coloured casts of the 
heads of an adult and young from North America. 
The Black-fish, Glohiocephalus melas or Glohicepliala melama, 
lias few and small teeth present in both jaws. It is character- 
ized by the rounded form of the head and the long and narrow 
flippers. This species, also known as the Pilot- Whale, CaTng- 
Whale, or Grindhval by the Faroe islanders, attains a length 
of 20 feet, and is of nearly uniform black, except the middle 
of the under surface, which is lighter. It is very gregarious, 
and mild and inoffensive in disposition, feeding on cuttle-fishes. 
This sociable disposition constantly leads to the destruction of 
these Whales, as, when attacked, they rush together and blindly 
follow the leaders of the herd. In this way many hundreds at 
a time are frequently driven ashore and killed, when a herd 
enters one of the bays or fiords of the Faroe or Shetland Islands. 
They are widely distributed, specimens from New Zealand 
being indistinguishable from those taken in the northern seas. 
The species is re])resented by a model, a skeleton, and casts of 
the paddles. 
The Porpoise, Plioccena communis, is the best-known anfi most 
frequent Cetacean on our coasts. Together with its immediate 
allies, it differs from other Delplunukc in the form of the teeth, 
which, instead of being conical and pointed, have compressed 
spade-shaped crowns. Its external form is well seen in the 
model of an English specimen. A closely-allied species, 
Neomeris, or Keoplioccma, pyhoccenoides, differing mainly in the 
absence of a back-fin, is common off the coast of Bombay, and 
has been met with in other parts of the Indian Ocean and near 
Japan. One of the specimens exhibited was captured in the 
Yang-tse-kiang River, nearly a thousand miles from the sea. 
Very different in structure and habits from the last is the 
Grampus ” or Killer,’^ Orca gladiator, a powerful species 
