Grey Whale. "Belua truculenta dentibus," observed Olaus Magnus of this Cetacean. The high dorsal fin has been much exaggerated in old drawings; it has been even represented as strong and sharpened at the end, so as to be capable of ripping open the belly of a Whale. The fact that it sometimes lies over a little to one side is responsible for another anecdote: that an example of this Whale was seen to retire with a couple of Seals tucked away under the flippers, another grasped by the dorsal fin, and a fourth in the mouth! "When an Orca pursues a whale," wrote Dr. Frangius, "the latter makes a terrible bellowing like a bull when bitten by a dog." It is probable, according to F. Cuvier, that this Whale is the "Aries marinus" of the ancients, certain bands of white upon the head giving an impression of curved horns. It may also be the "horrible Sea-satyre" of Edmund Spencer.
Allied to Orca, but distinguishable from it by some rather minute peculiarities, is Pseudorca. It may be thus defined:—Teeth eight to ten, much like those of Orca. Dorsal fin rather small, falcate. Vertebral formula C 7, D 10, L 9, Ca 24. Six or all the cervicals united. The curious fact about this Whale, which embraces only a single species, P. crassidens, is that it was first known in the fossil condition from remains discovered in the fens of Lincolnshire. An important day for cetologists was that on which a whole herd entered the Baltic and furnished material for a better study of this Whale. It is not, any more than its near ally Orca, confined to northern seas; for several examples, at first relegated to a distinct species (P. meridionalis), have been obtained from the seas round Tasmania.
Orcella (which has been written Orcaella) has fourteen to nineteen small sharp teeth in each half of each jaw. The pterygoids are widely separate. The dorsal fin is small and falcate. The vertebral formula is C 7, D 14, L 14, Ca 26. Seven ribs are two-headed, and five of them reach the sternum.
This genus contains but a single species, O. brevirostris, which is both marine and fresh-water in habit; it occurs in the Indian seas, and in the Irrawaddy even as far up as 900 miles from the sea. Some regard the fresh-water individuals as a distinct form, O. fluminalis.
Sagmatias is a genus known only from a skull, which is remarkable for the elevation of the premaxillae into a crest; the
