August 14, 1884] 



NA TURE 



565 



foreign teachers from various countries. They were con- 

 ducted over Mr. Waterhouse's costly and beautiful build- 

 ing by the Clerk of the Works and by a member of the 

 governing body, and evinced much interest in observing 

 all the latest improvements in school construction and 

 fittings, and in inspecting the library, laboratories, lec- 

 ture-rooms, and the ample appliances for physical 

 training. 



It is understood that the results of the Conference, the 

 text of the papers, and a summary of the discussions will 

 shortly appear in four or five volumes. 



THE VOYAGE OF THE " VETTOR PISANI" 

 T7"N0\VING how much Nature is read by all the 

 -*■*■ naturalists of the world, I send these few lines, which 

 I hope will be of some interest. 



The Italian R.N. corvette Vettor Pisani left Italy in 

 April 1S82 for a voyage round the world with the ordinary 

 commission of a man-of-war. The Minister of Marine, 

 wishing to obtain scientific results, gave orders to form, 

 when possible, a marine zoological collection, and to 

 carry on surveying, deep-sea soundings, and abyssal 

 thermometrical measurements. The officers of the ship 

 received their different scientific charges, and Prof. Dohrn, 

 director of the Zoological Station at Naples, gave to the 

 writer the necessary instructions for collecting and pre- 

 serving sea animals. 



At the end of 1882 the Vettor Pisani visited the Straits 

 of Magellan, the Patagonian Channels, and Chonos and 

 Chiloe Islands ; we surveyed the Darwin Channel, and 

 following Dr. Cuningham's work (who visited these places 

 on board H.M.S. Nassau), we made a numerous collec- 

 tion of sea animals by dredging and fishing along the 

 coasts. 



While fishing for a big shark in the Gulf of Panama 

 during the stay of our ship in Taboga Island one day in 

 February, with a dead calm, we saw several great sharks 

 some miles from our anchorage. In a short time several 

 boats with natives went to sea, accompanied by two of the 

 Vettor Pisa/ii's boats. 



Having wounded one of these animals in the lateral 

 part of the belly, we held him with lines fixed to the 

 spears ; he then began to describe a very narrow curve, 

 and irritated by the cries of the people that were in the 

 boats, ran off with a moderate velocity. To the first boat, 

 which held the lines just mentioned, the other boats were 

 fastened, and it was a rather strange emotion to feel our- 

 selves towed by the monster for more than three hours 

 with a velocity that proved to be two miles per hour. 

 One of the boats was filled with water. At last the animal 

 was tired by the great loss of blood, and the boats 

 assembled to haul in the lines and tow the shark on 

 shore. 



With much difficulty the nine boats towed the animal 

 alongside the Vettor Pisani to have him hoisted on board, 

 but it was impossible on account of his colossal dimen- 

 sions. But, as it was high water we went towards a sand 

 beach with the animal, and we had him safely stranded 

 at night. 



With much care were inspected the mouth, the nostrils, 

 the ears, and all the body, but no parasite was found. 

 The eyes were taken out and prepared for histological 

 study. The set of teeth was all covered by a membrane 

 that surrounded internally the lips ; the teeth are very 

 little and almost in a rudimental state. The mouth, 

 instead of opening in the inferior part of the head, 

 as in common sharks, was at the extremity of the head ; 

 the jaws having the same bend. 



Cutting the animal on one side of the backbone we met 



(1) a compact layer of white fat 20 centimetres deep ; 



(2) the cartilaginous ribs covered with blood vessels ; (3) 

 a stratum of flabby, stringy, white muscle, 60 centi- 



metres high, apparently in adipose degeneracy ; (4) the 

 stomach. 



By each side of the backbone he had three chamferings, 

 or flutings, that were distinguished by inflected interstices. 

 The colour of the back was brown with yellow spots that 

 became close and small towards the head so as to be like 

 marble spots. The length of the shark was 8'9om. from 

 the mouth to the pinna caudalis extremity, the greatest 

 circumference 6'5om., and 2^50 m. the main diameter (the 

 outline of the two projections is made for giving other 

 dimensions). 



The natives call the species Tintoreva, and the most 

 aged of the village had only once before fished such an 

 animal, but smaller. While the animal was on board 

 we saw several Remora about a foot long drop from 

 his mouth ; it was proved that these fish lived fixed to 

 the palate, and one of them was pulled off and kept in the 

 zoological collection of the ship. 



The Vettor Pisani has up to the present visited Gib- 

 raltar, Cape Verde Islands, Pernambuco, Rio Janeiro, 

 Monte Video, Valparaiso, many ports of Peru, Guayaquil, 

 Panama, Galapagos Islands, and all the collections were 

 up to this sent to the Zoological Station at Naples to be 

 studied by the naturalists. By this time the ship left 

 Callao for Honolulu, Manila, Hong Kong, and, as the 

 Challenger had not crossed the Pacific Ocean in these 

 directions, we made several soundings and deep-sea 

 thermometrical measurements from Callao to Honolulu. 

 Soundings are made with a steel wire (Thomson system) 

 and a sounding-rod invented by J. Palumbo, captain of 

 the ship. The thermometer employed is a Negretti and 

 Zambra deep-sea thermometer, improved by Captain 

 Maguaghi (director of the Italian R.N. Hydrographic 

 Office). 



With the thermometer wire has always been sent down 

 a tow-net which opens and closes automatically, also in- 

 vented by Captain Palumbo. This tow-net has brought 

 up some little animals that I think are unknown. 



Honolulu, July 1 G. Chierchia 



The shark captured by the Vettor Pisani in the Gulf 

 of Panama is Rhinodon typicus, probably the most gigantic 

 fish in existence. Mr. Swinburne Ward, formerly Com- 

 missioner of the Seychelles, has informed me that it 

 attains to a length of 50 feet or more, which statement 

 was afterwards confirmed by Prof. E. P. Wright. Origin- 

 ally described by Sir A. Smith from a single specimen 

 which was killed in the neighbourhood of Cape Town, this 

 species proved to be of not uncommon occurrence in the 

 Seychelle Archipelago, where it is known by the name of 

 " Chagrin." Quite recently Mr. Haly reported the cap- 

 ture of a specimen on the coast of Ceylon. Like other 

 large sharks (Careharodon rondeletii, Selache maxima, 

 &c), Rhinodon has a wide geographical range, and the 

 fact of its occurrence on the Pacific Coast of America, 

 previously indicated by two sources, appears now to be 

 fully established. T. Gill in 1S65 described a large shark 

 known in the Gulf of California by the name of " Tiburon 

 ballenas" or whale-shark, as a distinct genus — Micristodus 

 punctatus — which, in my opinion, is the same fish. And 

 finally, Prof. W. Nation examined in 1878 a specimen 

 captured at Callao. Of this specimen we possess in the 

 British Museum a portion of the dental plate. The teeth 

 differ in no respect from those of a Seychelles Chagrin ; 

 they are conical, sharply pointed, recurved, with the base 

 of attachment swollen. Making no more than due allow- 

 ance for such variations in the descriptions by different 

 observers, as are unavoidable in accounts of huge creatures 

 examined by some in a fresh, by others in a preserved 

 state, we find the principal characteristics identical in all 

 these accounts, viz. the form of the body, head, and snout, 

 relative measurements, position of mouth, nostrils and 

 eyes, dentition, peculiar ridges on the side of the trunk 

 and tail, coloration, &c. I have only to add that this 



