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Show 122 MR. R. LYDEKKER ON [Feb. 21, 2. Oo Dolphins from Travancore. By lv. L y d e k k e r . [Received December 30, 1901-.] (Plate X III.*) For some years past all specimens of Dolphins stranded on the shore or caught by the fishermen in their nets in the neighbourhood of Trevandrum, Travancore, have been collected and preserved by the officials of the Trevandrum Museum. This excellent work was begun by the late Director, Mr. Harold Ferguson, and, I am glad to say, is being continued by his successor, Major F. W. Dawson. In most cases careful measurements have been taken of the specimens in the flesh, while excellent coloured sketches have been made of the more important examples by Mr. C. S. Mudalear. After the completion of the measurements and drawings, the skeletons have been prepared-some of them, I am glad to say, having been presented to the British Museum. As the result of the diawings and specimens sent to me by Mr. Ferguson, I have (in addition to representatives of other genera) been enabled to determine two apparently distinct species of the genus Turslops, of both of which coloured figures have been published in the ‘ Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society ' f. To the one I gave the name T. fergusoni ; while the second I identified provisionally with the Australian T. calalcinia. Since the publication of the second of the papers just referred to, I have received from Trevandrum sketches of two other Dolphins taken off' that coast. The first of these (Plate X III. fig. 1) is one of a pair taken in the autumn of 1903; while the second (Plate X III. fig. 2) was captured in October 1904. Curiously enough, both appear to belong to the genus Tursiops ; and, what is more curious still, they are unlike either of the two specimens figured in the papers referred to above. Regarding the specimen taken in 1903, Mr. Ferguson wrote to me as follows :- " I sent off last week a case containing the skeletons of two Dolphins caught here lately. They are of the same species, and I think of the genus Tursiops. They are very closely allied to, if not identical with, T. catalania; but they have no blotches at the sides, and they have a dark blue band running from the eye to the front of the adipose elevation, as in the common Dolphin. This band is much less conspicuous in the larger and older specimen, and may possibly disappear altogether with age. I send measurements of the two specimens, and a sketch of the larger one, in which the blue line is only faintly shown." * For explanation of the Plate, see p. 128. f Vol. xv. pp. -ll & 108, pis. B & C. It may be noticed that in the second of these papers no references are made to the first ; this is owing to the fact that copies of the former had not been received in England at the time the latter was written. |