1915] Gudger : The Whale Shark. 383 



shows that its food consists of the plankton strained out of the 

 water by its peculiar gill apparatus. 



In the stomach of Kishinouye's Japanese specimen (1901), 

 there was found a sucking fish and a fragment of an oak pole 

 one foot in length. A number of sucking-fish were found ad- 

 hering to the shark when it was caught. Chierchia reports that 

 several were adhering to the inside of the mouth of his specimen. 



Van Kampen dissected a fair-sized specimen at Batavia, Java, 

 and reports as follows: "In its stomach I found nothing save 

 some sepia shells, and some small fish {Gobies, Sauries)." 



Habits. 



Offensive Habits. 



The Whale Shark, which is in size the chiefest of the Sela- 

 chians, has absolutely no offensive habits. Its huge bulk may 

 inspire terror, but it is the quietest and most inoffensive of ma- 

 rine animals. The nearest approach to offensive habits is indi- 

 cated by Wright, who says that: " it now and then rubs 



itself against a large pirogue as a consequence upsetting it, but, 

 under such circumstances, it never attacks or molests the men, 

 and while it reigns as a monster among sharks, is not, spite its 

 size, as formidable as the common dog-fish." This action, it may 

 be conjectured, arises either from playfulness or from a desire 

 to rid itself of barnacles or other marine growths. 



Defensive Habits. 



In such habits, Rhineodon seems likewise to be entirely lack- 

 ing. Smith, its discoverer, says that : "When approached it mani- 

 fested no great degree of fear, and it was not before a harpoon 

 was lodged in its body that it altered its course and quickened 

 its pace." Dr. Buist says that when harpooned at Kurrachee it 

 is allowed to tire itself out, is pulled in, stunned with clubs and 

 then dragged into shoal water. Chierchia's specimen when 

 struck ran first in circles and then straight away for three hours 

 at a velocity of more than two miles per hour, trying to escape 

 but offering no violence whatever. 



Mr. Brooks, in his letter quoted above, notes that the second 

 Florida specimen, at whose capture he was present, did not seem 



