356 Zoological N. Y. Zoological Society. [1;19 



"Color of back and sides greenish-gray, with numerous white 

 spots, varying in size from that of a sixpence to a half penny; 

 also several white lines on the sides of the head, the body, and 

 about the branchiae; below, reddish- white, passing into Vermil- 

 lion red, anterior part of back carinated, posterior rounded or 

 flat. Length of the specimen from which the description was 

 taken, 15 feet; greatest circumference, 9 feet. Was caught by 

 fishermen in Table Bay, during the month of April, 1828, and 

 the skin was purchased for £6 sterling, and forwarded to the 

 Paris Museum." 



In 1841, Miiller and Henle in their great ''Systematische 

 Beschreibung der Plagiostomen," an epoch-making work in the 

 literature of the sharks and rays, give our fish a definite place 

 under the name Rhinodon typicus. Their description is based 

 on Smith's paper of 1829, and upon the dried skin in the Paris 

 Museum. However, they give us one bit of information which 

 Smith omitted, even from his second paper presently to be con- 

 sidered. They say : ''The masculine appendages are in the single 

 specimen small and do not extend backward past the hinder 

 edges of the ventral fin." — i. e., this specimen was an immature 

 male. 



In 1849, Smith, in his "Illustrations of the Zoology of South 

 Africa," published an elegant figure of our shark\ which is re- 

 produced herein as Figure 118 (frontispiece). He also rede- 

 scribed the external features of the fish in the following words : 



"Color. — The upper and lateral parts of the head and body 

 dull lavender-purple, shaded with brownish-red; the under sur- 

 face of the head, the sides of the body inferiorly, and the belly, 

 light wood-brown, tinted with flesh-red, which tint is very strong 

 on the anterior portion of the head and the hinder edges of the 

 fin. On the upper and lateral parts of the head and body, and 

 also on several of the fins, the ground-color is much broken by a 

 profusion of small, circular white spots, and a great number of 

 narrow vertical lines, which commence at the center of the back 

 and terminate at the belly. The spots are smallest and most 

 numerous on the head and upper surface of the pectoral fins, 

 on the other parts they are larger and more scattered; and on 



^The original figure in Smith's book has been colored by hand. 



