REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. XXXVII 



Coast Survey. — It has been found necessary to call frequently upon the 

 Coast Survey for tide-tables, maps, and charts required for the use of 

 the different vessels of the Fish Commission, which have always been 

 promptly furnished. 



Idfe-Saving /Service. — In connection with the propagation of codfish 

 in the vicinity of New York, certain life-saving crews were directed to 

 aid the employees of the Fish Commission. 



The arrangement made by the Superintendent of the Life-Saving 

 Service, early in the year, for the telegraphic announcement to the 

 Smithsonian Institution of the stranding of marine animals has al- 

 ready been productive of important results. The series of specimens 

 thus far received is in every way remarkable, and should the system 

 continue to be so productive it is impossible to say what good may 

 not result to zoology. The first specimen received was that of a shark 

 {Pseudotriacis microdon) from Station No. 10, Amagansett, IST. T., Mr. 

 Joshua B. Edwards, keeper. This species had hitherto been captured 

 only off the coast of Portugal, and its discovery in our waters was a 

 matter of great interest to American ichthyologists. The only other 

 specimen known to be preserved is the type of the species. 



Shortly after this shark was received a still more remarkable animal 

 was announced from Station No. 8, at Spring Lake, E". J., Mr. Henry 

 S. Howland, keeper. This was a pigmy sperm-whale of the genus 

 Kogia, a form entirely new to the North Atlantic. Few specimens of 

 this genus have ever been collected, and these from the most remote 

 parts of the globe, some from New Zealand, and one from Mazatlan, at 

 the entrance of the Gulf of California. These animals resemble the 

 great sperm-whale, to which they are closely related, but do not seem 

 to attain a length of more than 9 or 10 feet, and are truly the pigmies 

 of their race. The New Jersey specimen was peculiarly interesting 

 in that it was a female with young. In dissecting the animal a fetus 

 fully 3 feet long was found, which is probably the first ever seen by the 

 naturalist. 



The interest aroused by the arrival of this specimen had scarcely 

 abated when the stranding of another cetacean was announced from 

 Station No. 17, at Barnegat City, N. J., Mr. J. H. Ridgway, keeper. 

 This remarkable animal floated in upon the tide and was secured by 

 Mr. Eidgway and his crew after considerable exertion. The curator of 

 mammals and an assistant were dispatched from the National Museum, 

 and a cast of the exterior was made and the skeleton prepared for ship- 

 ment to Washington. As the huge animal lay upon the sand the ques- 

 tion of its identity proved quite a puzzling one to the zoologist who 

 viewed it 5 but when the skull was cut out, it was at once apparent that 

 the animal belonged to the whales known as the Ziphioids, and proba- 

 bly to the species Zi^Mus cavirostris, an animal for which no common 

 name exists, but which may be termed a bottle-nose whale. It is prob- 

 ably the second specimen ever taken on the coast of the United States. 



