Supplement to the catalogue of seals and whales in the British Museum

by John Edward Gray

B.M.

Orca capensis, Gray, Cat. Seals & Whales, p. 283; P. Z. S. 1870, p. 71, figs. 2 & 4.

Delphinus orca, Owen.

Grampus gladiator, Smith, South-African Zool. p. 126.

Inhab. Cape of Good Hope (Viney, B.M.; Villette, Mus. Coll. Surg. no. 1139); Seychelles Islands (Swinburne Ward).

In the Cape specimen the intermaxillaries are nearly of the same width in the whole of their length; in the Seychelles skull they are contracted in the greater part of their length, and rather dilated in front.

Mr. Swinburne Ward has kindly sent a very beautiful skull of a “Killer” taken in the sea near the Seychelle Islands.

To determine this skull I have been induced to compare the skulls of the genus in the British Museum, which it is very necessary to do from time to time, as specimens gradually accumulate, and often arrive when I am occupied on other subjects, and consequently are put aside for future examination.

In this examination I have observed that in the ‘Catalogue of Seals and Whales’ I have confounded with the skull described under the name of Orca capensis one from the North Pacific, the former being the true Orca capensis, and the skull now received from the Seychelles Islands being of the same species.