ch from
the baleen whales, which have a narrow gullet. According to Professor
Flower there is no sufficient evidence of the existence of more than
one species of sperm whales, but an allied species, _Physeter_
(_Euphysetes_) _simus_, is found on the Madras coast, and to this
I will allude further on.

FAMILY DELPHINIDAE--THE DOLPHINS OR PORPOISES.

_GENUS PLATANISTA--THE RIVER DOLPHINS_.

A globular head with a long, compressed and, towards the end,
spoon-shaped rostrum or snout; flippers short, broad and triangular;
a long body of moderate girth; no back fin, but a slight elevation
which takes its place. There is a decided depression between the head
and body on the region of the neck; the eye is remarkably small, so
much so as to be hardly perceptible; in an adult of eight feet long
the whole eye-ball is no bigger than a pea, and the orifice of the
ear is like a pin-hole.

The skull has peculiar features. "The apparently rounded skull
behind the snout has broad, thick zygomatic arches, and above and
in front of these the cheek-bones (_maxillae_) each send forwards
and inwards a great roughened sheet of bone or crest, which forms
a kind of open helmet. In the large hollow between these bony plates,
and somewhat behind, are situated the nasal orifices, which are
slightly awry" (_Murie_).[19] Professor Flower's notice of the skull
('Osteology of the Mammalia') is thus worded: "The orbit is extremely
small, the temporal fossa large, and the zygomatic processes of the
squamosal are greatly developed. From the outer edge of the ascending
plates of the maxillae, which lie over the frontals, great crests
of bone, smooth externally, but reticulated and laminated on their
inner surface, rise upwards, and, curving inwards, nearly meet in
the middle line above the upper part of the face."

[Footnote 19: See Appendix B for illustration.]

The dentition is also curious, the upper and lower jaws being
provided with a number of teeth, pointed and conical in front, and
smaller and more flattened behind. They vary in number. In an example
quoted by Dr. Murie the total was 117, viz., 27--28/30--32, but in
a specimen examined by Dr. Anderson, who has most exhaustively
described these animals, the total number of teeth amounted to 128,
i.e. 33--32/32--31. (See Appendix B, p. 525.)

The cervical vertebrae are movable, and not ankylosed, as in many
of the cetacea; the caecum is small; the blow-hole is a narrow slit,
not transv