528 Bashford Dean Memorial Volume 



Dean knew of Carman's monograph on the anatomy of Chlamydoselachus (1885) and 

 of Nishikawa's pioneer work (1898) on the breeding habits and embryology. But in 1901 

 he wrote: "I hardly had hopes ... of obtaining [at Misaki] a series of embryos 

 [of Chlamydoselachus] ... on account of its great rarity; for one could easily count on 

 his fingers all of even the adult specimens which had hitherto been brought from 

 Japan. . . I found, however, that ... if one could secure many adult specimens there was 

 a fair chance of obtaining embryos, since this shark was known to be viviparous." 



During his twelve months in Japan (1900-1901), an intensive search for Chlamy- 

 doselachus was carried on. During his temporary absence from Misaki, this search was 

 prosecuted by his assistants, and, even after his departure for the United States, the hunt 

 was kept up — certainly as late as 1917- But so rare was the fish that in 1904, Dean wrote 

 that '\ . . in the course of a year, the neighborhood [the Sagami Sea] yields about a dozen 

 specimens [of both sexes]". And in his notebook under the heading "Abundance" is 

 this statement "1904. About 6 — 1 gravid". In another place is this notation — "1905. 

 Kuma fished for about 5 weeks in the best ground off Odowara — special tackle — squid 

 bait, depth from 300-600 fathoms, took 3 fish" — one male and two females. The scarcity 

 of specimens and the difficulty of procuring them, it may be noted, is due to the fact that 

 they have to be fished for with trawl hooks at depths averaging from 1200 to 3600 feet. 



Although 10 adult specimens of Chlamydoselachus have been taken in the seas of 

 western Europe, the only region where embryos have been obtained is still the Sagami 

 Sea, more particularly the waters around the Miura Peninsula on which the Misaki 

 Biological Station is situated. Dean states that he had females with young from Sagami 

 Bay (and particularly from the Odowara Maye); while other materials came from the 

 Gulf of Tokyo — another arm of the Sagami Sea. For these localities see Text-figure 1 . 



The chief collector at the Misaki Station in Dean's day and for long afterwards was 

 Kuma Aoki, an ex-fisherman, who had a remarkable knowledge of all the specific localities 

 where Chlamydoselachus might be found. In addition to fishing directly for Dean, Kuma 

 made arrangements with other fishermen in. Sagami Bay that all frilled sharks taken by 

 them should be brought to the laboratory. Also Prof. Mitsukuri of the Imperial Uni- 

 versity of Tokyo arranged with the market people in Tokyo that all specimens brought 

 there from any source whatever should at once be sent to the station at Misaki. From all 

 these sources, material slowly came to Dean at the laboratory on the Miura Peninsula. 



In the fragmentary entries in various handwritings in Dean's notebook, a total of 42 

 adults are listed — 16 males and 26 females. These cover the years 1900-1906 inclusive. 

 In Dean's own handwriting, there are listed with measurements 21 adult fishes — 7 males 

 and 14 females. I surmise that these were the results of Dean's collecting for the 12 months 

 of 1900-1901. It is probable that the grand total of 42 adults, from all records in various 

 handwritings in his notebook, contains a number of duplications. Of the 26 females 

 listed, 10 are credited with producing 56 eggs. For 24 of these eggs it is stated that two 

 were in the blastula stage, two in the gastrula, while 20 had on them embryos varying 

 from 11.5 to 390 mm. in length. 



