1915] Gudger : The Whale Shark. 359 



spoils was said to have been *20 feet long,' with a 'head, six feet 

 wide,' 'pectorals, 3 feet long' and 'flukes, six feet between tips.' 

 'The back from the head to the first dorsal fin, brown, with red- 

 dish spots.' The head is represented as truncated in front. 



"This type will be seen, therefore, to be very distinct, but 

 is evidently related to the South African genus Rhinodon, and 

 must be referred to the family of Rhinodontidse with the name 

 of Micristodus punctatus." 



Jordan and Evermann (1896) copy Gill without being able 

 to add anything to our knowledge, since, when they wrote, no 

 other specimen had been taken on the west coast of North 

 America and so far as the present writer knows this statement 

 holds good to the present time. 



In 1902, Mr. B. A. Bean published in Science a note on the 

 coming ashore at Ormond, Florida, of an 18-foot Rhineodon, 

 and in this referred to Doctor Gill's Micristodus. A few weeks 

 later Doctor Gill, in the same journal, after comparing the teeth 

 of the Floridan and Californian specimens, declared them to be 

 at least congeneric. To this conclusion Giinther (1884) had 

 already come. 



We now come to E. Perceval Wright, a naturalist whose 

 opportunities for the study of the Whale Shark have been great- 

 er than those of all scientists from Smith in 1829 to the present 

 writer in 1913, all added together, and who has in comparison 

 made less use of them than any one else. In justification of this 

 severe criticism, let us see what opportunities he has had and 

 what he has done with them. Writing from the Seychelles, a 

 group of islands in the western Indian Ocean northeast of Mad- 

 agascar, he says in 1870. 



"It was between this island and the eastern coast of Mahe 

 that I had the good fortune to meet with the 'Chagrin.' I had 

 often heard stories of this monstrous fish ; but at first I attached 

 as little credit to them as I do to the stories told by Bishop 

 Pontoppidan about the 'Kraken'; however, Mr. [Swinburne] 

 Ward having measured one that somewhat exceeded 45 feet in 

 length, I felt bound to believe this evidence, longing all the while 

 to corroborate it by my own personal experience. This I was 

 able to accomplish, and, thanks to Mr. Ward's exertions, and to 

 the offer of a reward of twelve dollars for the first specimen sue- 



