ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 
135 
UNICORN-FISH 
ORANGE FILE-FISH 
Above: 
Below: 
fronts, now have a depth of ten to eleven feet 
back from the glass. The increase in swimming 
space has been of positive benefit to the occu- 
pants of the tanks and has added enormously 
to the attractiveness of the whole series. As 
soon as suitable material can be found, the new 
tanks will be provided with linings of rock 
work suitable as backgrounds for the exhibits 
they contain.—C. H. T. 
Tue Unicorn Fisu.—Among the fishes re- 
ceived from Florida in September was the uni- 
corn fish (Aleutera scripta). Although fairly 
well known in the Florida-West Indies region, 
it has been brought to the Aquarium only twice 
before. It reaches a length of over two feet, our 
specimen being about eighteen inches long. Like 
other file-fishes of this genus, it is deep of body 
but much compressed laterally. It has the same 
long head, with small upturned, terminal mouth, 
and the eye so far back that it seems to be on 
the body rather than on the head. It is slow 
of movement, like the orange file-fish so common 
in New York waters in summer, and rather dis- 
posed to lie on its side near the surface of the 
tank. The unicorn fish is strikingly colored, the 
head and body being covered with round black 
ADEUTERA SCRIPTA) RECENTLY RECEIVED FROM FLORIDA 
ALEUTERA SCAOEPFI) FOUND IN NEW YORK BAY IN SUMMER 
Photographed by Elwin R. Sanborn 
spots and streaked lengthwise with many broken 
stripes of blue—C. H. T. 
AN Opp Use ror THE Sra Horse.—According 
to Chinese logic, everything has some purpose 
and an animal that has no commercial or food 
value must be intended for medicine. The Chi- 
nese materia medica therefore contains not only 
many plants and drugs used by occidentals, but 
a variety of animals prepared and preserved in 
different ways. Chinese drug stores in Califor- 
nia display lizards, snakes, birds, fish and in- 
edible parts of other animals, dried, pickled, 
salted or otherwise treated. 
The idea that by eating a certain animal we 
may become possessed of its most striking 
peculiarities, is common among primitive peo- 
ples and still persists with the Chinese, who 
steep a broth from the finely chopped portions of 
the animals. Thus a man become ferocious and 
dangerous after drinking snake wine. This is 
prepared by introducing a live rattlesnake into 
a crock of rice wine. The longer the snake lives 
and the more it strikes at the sides of its prison, 
the more potent the wine becomes; and the pe- 
cuniary value of a snake so used rests, first 
