626 
with an officer and a few men, was proceeding from 
Manilla to Cavite; but meeting with a severe 
squall and thick weather, they were driven nearly 
into the middle of the bay. They were pulling in 
what they thought the best direction, when on a 
sudden the sailors all dropped their oars. But the 
mate, who was steering, looking astern of the boat, 
saw the open jaws of a huge fish almost over him. 
Having nothing at hand, he threw the boat’s tiller 
into the mouth of the fish, shouting as loud as pos- 
sible; when, the jaws closing with a tremendous 
erash, the whole fish, which they deseribed to be 
more like a spotted whale than anything else, dived 
beneath the boat, and was seen no more. I do not 
now recollect the names of the ship, or of the cap- 
tain, but I thought the circumstance of the 
spotted appearance a remarkable proof that the 
story is not an invention. ‘‘We do not like to 
tell it,’? said the American eaptain, ‘‘for fear of 
being laughed at; but my officer is quite trust- 
worthy, and we have learned from the fishermen 
too, that there is some strange species of large 
fish highly dangerous to their boats.’’ 
Like the American officer, I fear almost being 
laughed at, were it not that, could we collect more 
facts relative to these strange monsters, they 
might perhaps at least explain some of the ‘‘coral 
spots’? so often mentioned in our charts: inde- 
pendent of its being a matter of great interest to 
the naturalist. I therefore add here a vague no- 
tice of monstrous spotted fish, which are known 
to the Moluccas. 
These are called by the fishermen of Ternate, 
Celebes, etc., a ‘‘Ikon Bintang’’ (or star-fish) 
from the bright light which they occasion, and by 
which they are recognized at great depths at night, 
in calm weather. The Malay fishermen describe 
them too as spotted, as large as a whale and 
highly destructive to nets; which they instantly 
take up when they see the fish, if they can get 
time to do so; for it is known to destroy boats, 
and whole lines of nets and fishing stakes, if it 
once became entangled amongst them, to the ruin 
of the poor fishermen. I had the same account 
corroborated in the Sooloo Islands, both by the 
Malay and Chinese fishermen; as also at Zebu, in 
the Philippine Islands. At Sooloo, I was shown 
large quantities of the skin of a spotted fish, cut 
into pieces and dried, for sale to the Chinese 
Junks, which my people said was the skin of 
young ‘‘chacons’’—‘‘Piro no son estos como 
chacon de alla, Senor.’’ ‘‘But these are not like 
our chacon yonder, Sir,’’ was always added. 
This skin I should have called that of a spotted 
SCIENCE 
[N. S. Vou. XLVIII. No. 1251 
shark [of the ordinary kind like the tiger 
shark]; the tubercles were excessively coarse and 
rough. 
It seems thus certain, that some immense 
spotted fish, of highly destructive tendencies . 
exists in the Seas of the Hastern Archipelago.14 
One hardly knows what to make of this. 
Andrew Smith (1829 and 1849),1° the first 
discoverer of the fish, says ‘‘ Oesophagus rather 
narrow,” while all the writers about Rhineodon 
who have known the fish at first hand— 
notably Wrighti® whose opportunities for 
study of it were greater than all others—have 
commented on its mild disposition. On the 
other hand Dr. Jordan (1915) records that the 
Zamboanga, Philippine Islands, specimen had 
in its stomach a number of shoes, leggings, 
leather belts, ete. The structure of its gills, 
however, plainly shows that it is a whale not 
merely in size but in manner of feeding. 
Hence these stomach contents are, as Dr. Jor- 
dan notes, incongruous and inexplicable in the 
light of its gill structures and small oesoph- 
agus. ; 
The latter part of Piddington’s account is 
no less valuable than the first since it ties in 
well with other accounts of the occurrence of 
Rhineodon in the waters of the East Indies, 
particular in the Celebes. Thus Weber (1902, 
1913)17 states that he saw several in the strait 
between Buton and Muna in this archipelago. 
While in the Java Sea, van Kampen (1908)%* 
dissected one at Batavia and later obtained a 
14 Piddington, H., ‘‘Notice of an Hxtraordi- 
nary Fish,’’ Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal, 
1835, Vol. 4, pp. 218-222. é 
15 Smith, Andrew, ‘‘Contributions to the Nat- 
ural History of South Africa,’’? Zoological Jour- 
nal, 1829, No. 16, p. 643. (Do.) Pisces, in Ilus- 
trations of the Zoology of South Africa, plate 26 
and description, London, 1849. 
16 Wright, HE. P., ‘‘Six Months at the Seychel- 
les,’’? Spicilegia Biologica, Pt. I., pp. 64-65. 
Dublin. 
17 Weber, Max, ‘‘Siboga-Expeditie,’’ Vol. L., 
Introduction et Description de 1’Expedition, p. 
88. Leiden, 1902; Vol. 57, ‘‘Die Fische der Si- 
boga-Bxpedition,’’ p. 584. Leiden, 1913. 
1s Van Kampen, P. N., ‘‘Die Nahrung von 
Rhinodon typicus Smith,’’ (In Kurze notizen 
