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Show 1883.] PROF, F L O W E R O N T H E DELPHINID.*:. 475 F. Cuvier's ' Histoire Naturelle des Cetaces' (1836), at p. 158, under the name of D. cephalorhynchus. It does not appear that an animal having exactly the coloration ascribed to this individual has been met with again ; and as, allowing for imperfections of the drawings, it agrees very closely in form with D. heavisidii, it may be considered as only a variety (perhaps melanism) of that species. A full and accurate description of a Dolphin, of which the skin was brought from the Cape of Good Hope by M . Verreaux, is quoted by Fred. Cuvier (op. cit. p. 161), from a manuscript by M . Quoy, under the name of D. hastatus. Cuvier recognizes its identity with Gray's D. heavisidii, but does not adopt the name, although it clearly has the right of priority as to publication. In the same chapter in which he quotes Gray's 'Spicilegia ' (published eight years before), he says : - " Voici la description manuscrite que nous trouvons de la main de M. Quoy, et que nous ne sachions pas avoir ete publiee." With the same disregard for priority, Rapp ('Die Cetaceen,' p. 37, 1837) has the species Delphinus hastatus, Fr. Cuvier, giving D. heavisidii, Gray, and D. capensis, Dussumier, as synonyms. His figure is from a specimen in the Museum of Stuttgart, and is an improvement upon that of Gray, except perhaps as to the form of the head and mouth. The colouring, well shown in the figure of the under surface (plate iii. fig. B ) , agrees exactly with the descriptions of Gray and Quoy. A better figure of unquestionably the same animal, from a drawing by Castelnau, has been given by Van Beneden (Bull, de l'Acad. Roy. de Belgique, 2me ser. t. xxxvi. No. 7, juillet 1873) under the erroneous name of Orca capensis, Gray, although its specific identity with Delphinus heavisidii and D. hastatus is admitted. In a valuable paper on the " Whales and Dolphins of N e w Zealand," published in the Transactions of the New-Zealand Institute for 1872, vol. v. (1873), Dr. Hector describes the external and some of the osteological characters of a Dolphin, apparently one of the commonest in the seas around New Zealand, under the name of Electra clancula, upon the supposition that it was identical with the Lagenorhynchus clanculus (afterwards Electra clancula) of Gray, described from a skull alone. The vagueness of Dr. Gray's description may be a sufficient excuse for this determination ; but it was altogether an erroneous one, as it is evident that the New-Zealand animal is not an Electra or Lagenorhynchus at all, but belongs to a totally different group of the family. The figure of the under surface of the skull (Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. ix. pl. xi.) shows the separated and diverging pterygoid bones, and all the characters of the present section. Unfortunately the numbers of the vertebras are not given. In size the animal differs little from G. heavisidii, fifty-one inches being given as its length. Hutton (Trans. N.-Z. Inst. ix. p. 350) gives four to five feet. The slight sketch of the external form given by Hector (which Hutton characterizes as "not good") shows considerable similarity to the previous figures of D. heavisidii, but |
