Juke 25, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



985 



fort to the inhabitants, if not actually 

 menacing their health. There was no evi- 

 dence of an epidemic among the fishes, as 

 had at first been feared. Great schools of 

 them had come into dangerously shoal 

 water, perhaps as the result of pursuit by 

 predaceous species, and had been stranded 

 by the receding tide. There was thus noth- 

 ing to be done but to remove the offal, and 

 to pray that the catastrophe might not be 

 repeated. 



A few notes seem worth while regarding 

 certain species of animals which have been 

 taken at Woods Hole, during the past year. 

 Orthopristis chrysopterus, a fish belonging 

 to the family Hamulidse, which is common 

 farther south along our Atlantic coast, was 

 taken for the first time in the vicinity of 

 "Woods Hole. A specimen of the " flasher ' ' 

 or "triple-tail" {Lohotes surinamensis) 

 was captured at Nantucket. There have 

 been very few previous records of the oc- 

 currence of this fish locally. A small crab, 

 Bissodactylus niellitce, which lives in asso- 

 ciation with echinoids of the "sand dollar" 

 type, was taken in Vineyard Sound, though 

 probably not for the first time. A curious 

 case deserves mention of one fish becoming 

 encysted within the body of another. In 

 May, 1908, Mr. V. N. Edwards chanced to 

 open a large hake (Urophycis tenuis) in 

 the course of his search for parasitic worms. 

 The hake seemed to be in perfect health and 

 its stomach was nearly fiUed by a whiting, 

 which had been recently swallowed. Upon 

 examining the body cavity, a long slender 

 object was found, completely inclosed with- 

 in a fold of the peritoneum. This proved 

 to be a dead fish, having a decidedly "mum- 

 mified" appearance. Its body was 25 cm. 

 in length. Skin, and for the most part fin- 

 rays, were lacking, and the flesh was much 

 shrunken and extremely hard. From the 

 general bodily proportions of this fish, and 

 the presence of a frontal spine, it is believed 



by the writer to belong to the genus Lepto- 

 phidium. Several members of this genus 

 have been taken off the coast, at great 

 depths, and it seems likely that the present 

 specimen came from a considerable dis- 

 tance. It had probably been swallowed by 

 the hake, escaping subsequently through the 

 wall of the stomach, perhaps by using the 

 frontal spine as a perforating organ. The 

 stomach of the hake had evidently healed 

 completely after this adventure. 



The fact does not seem to have been 

 hitherto recorded that the "hawk-bill" or 

 tortoise-shell turtle {Eretmochelys imbri- 

 cata) not infrequently reaches the coast of 

 southern New England. Its occurrence has 

 not been mentioned in any list of the rep- 

 tiles of Massachusetts, and I have found 

 no reference to its having been observed 

 north of North Carolina. Small specimens 

 of both the loggerhead and hawk-bill are, 

 however, occasionally taken in local fish 

 traps, and one or two of the latter have 

 been preserved in the museum of the labo- 

 ratory. A specimen ten or twelve inches 

 long was taken among floating Sargassum 

 by Mr. Edwards in August, 1908, and was 

 kept for some time in the shark pool of the 

 station. I learn from Mr. Edwards that 

 individuals as large as eighteen inches long 

 are not infrequently captured. This spe- 

 cies is readily distinguished from the log- 

 gerhead {Caretta caretta) by the presence 

 of four costal shields, instead of five as in 

 the latter, and from the green turtle 

 {Chelonia my das) by the presence of two 

 prefrontal plates on each side of the head. 



The following is a list of the investiga- 

 tors present during the season, together 

 with their subjects of research : 



Carl L. Alsberg, Ph.D., instructor in biochem- 

 istry, Harvard University:" (1) chemical com- 

 position and food, value of certain marine organ- 



"Now pharmacologist in the Bureau of Plant 

 Industry. 



