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



6 inches. The gall-bladder is exterior to the surface of the liver, 

 and is situated on its concave or dorsal aspect, close to its base, 

 before it divides into lobes. It is of a piriforn shape, and the 

 duct is much convoluted and so large as readily to admit the 

 forefinger of a full-grown man; it discharges the bile into the 

 upper extremity of the large intestines, and the point where 

 it enters their outer coat is fully two inches higher than that 

 at which it perforates the inner; the duct between these two 

 points is contracted and tortuous, and the terminal opening is 

 not larger than would admit a pea. 



"The spleen is closely connected with the inferior extremity 

 of the stomach and the hinder surface of the small intestine, 

 and, excepting where it winds under the apex of the former, 

 is lobulate, as in the true sharks, and exhibits a striking re- 

 semblance to the spleen of Alopias vulpes, Raf. The pancreas 

 is slender, and partially encircles the upper extremity of the 

 large intestine." 



Food and Feeding. 



When one sees or hears the word "shark," one instinctively 

 thinks of a cold-blooded marauder of the seas, with a mouth 

 filled with many rows of sharp, triangular teeth, with a vora- 

 cious and almost insatiable appetite ; a fish, in fact, not averse 

 to human flesh, and with an active habit of life sufficient for 

 the satisfying of such an appetite; in short, all the characters, 

 real or imaginary, summed up in the great man-eater, Carcharo- 

 don rondeletii. 



And yet here we are dealing with the veritable giant of sharks 

 — the Whale Shark, Rhineodon typus, whose measured length 

 runs from fourteen to forty-five feet, and whose length estimated 

 by men accustomed to such reckonings may reach the vast figure 

 of seventy feet, but whose manner of life is even more peaceful 

 than that of the common dog-fish. For, be it known, that this 

 largest among fishes is not merely a whale in size, but in man- 

 ner of feeding, its almost microscopic teeth being in consonance 

 with the minute size of the animals on which it feeds. 



Smith, in his first paper, (1829), gives no intimation of the 

 food of this great fish, but in his later (1849) and fuller paper 

 he goes into the matter at length. Since he is the first and only 



