216 
REINHARDT ON 
is placed entirely on the anterior half of the body, so that a line, drawn from its point vertically 
down to the axis of the body, will meet the latter at some distance in front of the centre of the 
whole body, it is on the contrary placed somewhat farther backwards in our dolphin, and the line 
just mentioned will here fall rather behind than before the middle of the body. A very 
conspicuous difference between these two dolphins, which though necessitated by the osteology, 
has only been briefly alluded to before, and which must therefore now be more minutely 
examined, is to be found in the shape of the pectoral fin. The ca’ing-whale, we know, 
is distinguished by the very long, narrow, and pointed pectoral fin; its breadth being scarcely 
one fourth of its length, and the latter dimension is so considerable as to equal one fourth of the 
whole length of the animal. In the dolphin here described, the cut (if I may use this 
expression) of the pectoral fin, indeed, still resembles that of the ca’ing-whale, but it is broader in 
proportion to its length (the proportion is about as one to three), and it is, moreover, so short, 
that it is contained eight or nine times in the total length; our dolphin, therefore, can by 
no means be said to have long, but on the contrary, short pectoral fins. To these important 
differences between these two forms, we must still, besides the remaining osteological characters, 
mention the great difference already pointed out in the size of the teeth and the comparative 
length of the dental row, on which, however, I shall dwell no longer, as it may be supposed that 
none of those who, generally speaking, admit of the necessity of subdividing Cuvier’s genera 
Delphinus and Phoccena, w r ould think of placing our species in the same genus with the 
ca’ing-whale. 
We have seen above, that at present it is difficult or rather impossible to define exactly the 
degree of the difference in the osteology between the dolphin here treated of, and Cuvier’s 
Delphinus grriseus, the type of the genus Grampus •} and it is scarcely easier to do it, as far as the 
external form is concerned. D’Orbigny’s description of this species , 1 2 published by Fr. Cuvier, 
the only original one founded on autopsy existing, is not particularly minute in its details, and the 
figure following the description, (though, indeed, far superior to the older, and extremely indifferent 
one, of the individual stranded at Brest, which accompanied G. Cuvier’s first account of this 
dolphin ,) 3 was, as we know, not drawn until twelve or thirteen days after the stranding of the 
animal, so long after death, therefore, that the decomposition had most probably altered its 
appearance not a little, especially as the occurrence took place in the hot summer-time. Accord¬ 
ingly, even the latter and better figure must, on this account, be used with caution, and it 
1 Besides Cuvier’s Delphinus griseus, the typical species of the genus, three other species have been 
placed by Gray, in the genus Grampus, one of these, however, Gr. Richardsonii is only founded on a 
single lower jaw in the British Museum, which was, moreover, for some time supposed by him to 
belong to the typical species itself; the Gr. Sakamata is only founded on the narratives of the 
Japanese, about a dolphin inhabiting the sea around Japan, in which others believe they have recognised 
a true killer ; the third, finally, is llisso’s Delphinus aries (D. Rissoanus, Desm.), which considered as 
a species is most certainly perfectly well-founded, but it can hardly be set down as an undoubted fact, 
that this Cetaceau is to be placed in the same genus with Delphinus griseus. Its osteology is still 
perfectly unknown, and other authors are inclined to consider it to be nearly related to the ca’ing- 
whale. Thus it is, in my opinion, only D. griseus that can be referred to, when we are speaking 
of the characters of the genus Grampus. 
' Fr. Cuvier’s * l’Histoire naturelle des Cetacea,’ p. 184, pi. xii, fig. 2. 
3 * Annales du Museum,’ tom. xix, tab. i, fig. 1. 
