ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



DKVIL-USH OR GIANT RAY 



i copyrighted photograph made by John O. LaGo 



Herrings and Potatoes.— A barrel of pota- 

 toes, or a barrel of herrings, is not. even in these 

 hard times, an object of surpassing general inter- 

 est. Yet we recall the story in our school 

 readers, of Louis XVI proudly wearing in his 

 buttonhole a blossom from one of the first potato 

 plants raised in France. 



No monument was erected to the discover of 

 the potato, which is believed to have originated 

 in Peru, but a statue was erected to the memory 

 of the man who discovered the art of curing and 

 barreling herrings in 1 H6. 



He was a plain fisherman of Dutch Flanders. 

 William Beuckels (or Boekel) by name, and at 

 least one monarch — Charles V — paid homage 

 to his ingenuity by visiting his tomb, though 

 probably neither king nor fisherman foresaw the 

 universal importance of Beuckels' discovery, the 

 thousands of firms and the hundreds of thou- 

 sands of men that would one day be engaged 

 upon both sides of the Atlantic, in curing and 

 barreling herrings. I. M. M. 



Xote. — Most authorities credit the Dutchman with 

 this discovery, though there is one statement extant 

 that the curing of herrings with salt was discovered 

 by Peter Chivalier, a Yarmouth merchant, prior to 

 the year 1155. 



A Giant Devil-Fish. — The Manta or devil- 

 fish (Mania birostris) is one of the largest of 

 fishes, and the accompanying photograph repre- 



sents what appears to be the largest specimen 

 actually measured. Its capture is described by 

 Mr. J. O. LaGorce, from whom the photograph 

 was received, in a recent number of the National 

 Geographic Magazine. 



This big fish, which was killed off Bimini 

 Island. Bahamas, after towing a heavy launch for 

 nearly five hours, measured twenty-two feet 

 across the pectoral fins and seventeen feet from 

 head to tip of tail. 



The Manta is an inhabitant of tropical seas 

 and many have been killed in Florida waters. 

 Large specimens have been killed in the Carib- 

 bean Sea and in the Gulf of California. 



We have seen large Mantas in some of the 

 atoll lagoons of the Low Archipelago, in the 

 Pacific, but none approaching in size the speci- 

 men shown in this picture. Its skin has been 

 preserved bv a Florida fishing club. 



C. II . T. 



The San Francisco Aquarium. — We are in- 

 formed that the California Academy of Sciences 

 has received the fund bequeathed by the late 

 Mr. Steinhart of San Francisco for the build- 

 ing of an Aquarium in Golden Gate Park. The 

 architect and engineer selected by the Academy 

 will vsit the New York Aquarium at an early 

 date, for the purpose of studying various fea- 

 tures of aquarium equipment. 



