OCR Text |
Show 508 PROF. FLOWER ON THE DELPHINID.E. [Nov. 20, elongated, the length being to the width as 3 to 2. Pectoral moderate size, narrow and pointed. Dorsal fin situated near the middle of the back, of moderate size, falcate. Head in front of the blowhole high, and compressed anteriorly. The snout truncated. This peculiar form was first known by the discovery of a skull, in a subfossil state, in a fen in Lincolnshire, described by Owen under the name of Phocana crassidens (Brit. Foss. Mamm. & Birds, p. 516, 1846). Animals of apparently the same species were afterwards met with in small herds on the Danish coast, and fully described by Bernhardt. In 1864 (see P.Z.S. 1864, p. 420) two skulls, sent from Tasmania, were described by me under the name of Orca (Pseudorca 1) meridionalis \ Since that time I have had an opportunity of comparing a larger series of skulls, as well as skeletons, from both localities, and believe that the differential characters upon which the latter species was established depend upon the type being of younger age than the only specimen of the northern form then accessible for comparison. In perfectly adult examples of both I have not been able to detect any constant differences. This fact has an important bearing upon the geographical distribution of the Cetacea, as, if confirmed, it indicates an immense range for a species apparently so rare. The length of the animal is about 14 feet. GLOBICEPS2. Globicephala, Lesson, Nouv. Tableau du Regne Animal, p. 200 (1842). Globiocephalus, Gray, Zool. Erebus & Terror, p. 32 (1846). Q Teeth ^, confined to the anterior half of the rostrum and corresponding part of the mandible, small, conical, curved, sharp-pointed when unworn, sometimes deciduous in old age. Skull broad and depressed. Pterygoid bones of normal form, meeting or very nearly meeting in the middle line (see fig. 1, p. 471). Upper surface of rostrum broad, flat, and concave in front of nares. Premaxillae as wide, or wider, at the middle of the rostrum as at the base, and very nearly or completely concealing the maxillae in the anterior half of this region. Vertebrae: C. 7, D. 11, L. 12-14, C. 28-29 ; total 58 or 59. Bodies of the anterior five or six cervical vertebrae united. Length of the bodies of the lumbar and anterior caudal vertebrae about equal to their width. Pectoral limb very long and narrow, the second digit the longest, and having as many as 12 or 13 phalanges, the third shorter (with 9 phalanges), the first, fourth, and fifth very short. Fore part of the head very round, in consequence of the great development of a cushion of fat 1 It should be noted that the figure of the upper surface of the skull at p. 421 has accidentally not been reversed by the artist, and hence the distortion characteristic of the heads of the Belphinidce is represented the wrong way. 2 I have ventured to substitute this form of the word, originally proposed by Cuvier in a specific sense, but no longer used as such {melas having the priority), for Lesson's more cumbersome, hybrid term. It is certainly an adjective form, but this does not appear to be a bar to its being used generically. |