May 23, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



825 



notice also appears in the 'Videnskabelige 

 Meddelelser fra den uaturliistoriske Forening 

 i Kjobenhavn,' for Aaret 1873 ('Oversigt,' p. 

 11). Dr. Liitken denies that the shark is 

 herbivorous and maintains that it feeds on 

 minute animals. 



In 1874 Professor Wright described a crusta- 

 cean parasite of the Rhinodon {Stasiotes 

 rliinodontis) in an article 'On a New Genus 

 and Species belonging to the Family Pan- 

 darina' in the Proceedings of the Irish 

 Academy (pp. 583-585). 



■^ In 1876 Professor Wright incidentally treats 



of the Rhinodon in an article on 'The Basking 

 Shark' in Nature (XIV., pp. 313, 314). He 

 says "When engaged at the sperm whale fishery 

 off St. Denis the fishermen often told me they 

 dreaded to harpoon by mistake a Rhinodon. 

 A whale must come up to breath or else choke 

 itself. But there were stories told me of how 

 a harpooned Rhinodon, having by a lightning- 

 like dive exhausted the supply of rope, which 

 had been accidentally fastened to the boat, 

 dived deeper still, and so pulled pirogue and 

 crew to the bottom — there, in spite of the har- 

 poon in its neck and its attendant incum- 

 brances, it was at home for a great length of 

 time." (One would like to know the length 

 of the rope and the depth of descent.) 



In 1878, Professor W. Nation 'examined 

 * * * a specimen captured at Callao. Of this 

 specimen' the British Museum is said to pos- 

 sess "a portion of the dental plate. The teeth 

 difFer in no respect from those of the Sey- 



_i chelles chagrin [^Rhinodon iypicus] ; they are 

 conical, sharply pointed, recurved, with the 

 base of attachment swollen." This notice is 

 by Albert Giinther in Nature (XXX., p. 365) 

 and contains the first detailed account of the 

 teeth, which had been previously described as 

 simply conic. 



In 1879, Professor Wright especially no- 

 ticed the Rhinodon in his 'Animal Life.' 

 (This work is not dated, a fault of the pub- 

 lishers, but it appears from the 'English 

 Catalogue of Books' that it was published in 

 1879.) He repeats the information already 

 given by him and postulates that the shark 

 'would appear to have a very limited geo- 

 graphical distribution.' If the animals else- 



where found are conspeciflc with it, however, 

 the possible range is large. 



In 1883, Mr. A. Haly, director of the Col- 

 ombo Museum, records the 'Occurrence of 

 Rhinodon typicus Smith on the west coast 

 of Ceylon' in the Annals and Magazine of 

 Natural History (5th ser., XII., pp. 48, 49). 

 The specimen — a female — was 23 feet 9 inches 

 long. 



In 1884, Signor G. Chierchia, in a brief "^ 

 notice of the 'The Voyage of the Vettor 

 Pisani,' an Italian corvette, in Nature 

 (XXX., p. 365), alludes to a gigantic shark 

 caught in the Gulf of Panama. The shark 

 was called Tintoreva by the natives and the 

 specimen was 8.90 meters (nearly thirty feet) 

 long. Albert Giinther adds a note identify- 

 ing it with the Rhinodon typicus and ex- 

 presses the opinion that the Micristodus punc- 

 tatus is of the same species. 



in 1884 Mr. Edgar Thurston, superintend- '^ 

 ent of the Madras Government Museum, re- 

 cords the capture of several specimens of 

 Rhinodon; one '22 feet in length' which had 

 been 'cast on shore at Madras in February, 

 1889,' and another '14 feet 6 inches in length 

 was caught off Bambalapitiya (Ceylon) ' 

 in April, 1890. A photograph of the Madras 

 specimen is reproduced in 'Bulletin No. 1' 

 of the Madras Museum (PI. III. A). A de- 

 scription is also interjected in a section of the 

 report (pp. 36-38) on the 'Inspection of Cey- 

 lon Pearl Banks.' 



In 1901 Kamakichi Kishinouye, of the 

 Imperial Fisheries Bureau at Tokyo, pub- 

 lished a notice of 'A Rare Shark, Rhinodon 

 pentalineatus n. sp.,' in the Zoologischer 

 Anzeiger for 1901 (XXIV., pp. 694, 695). It 

 is not obvious how the species differs from R. 

 typicus. 



The question of specific differences (if any) 

 within the genus must be reserved for a 

 future Occasion. Differences in the number 

 of teeth and coloration may be of specific 

 value. 



Mr. Bean remarked that a specimen 'taken 

 at the Seychelles Islands, is known from the 

 teeth only' in the British Museum. That 

 Museum has the fish itself, about 17 feet long, 

 mounted by Gerrard. The only Museum speci- 



