808 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN. 



deed we have lost 

 four for this rea- 

 son within the last 

 year. These speci- 

 al e n s are larger 

 than the Pacific 

 hawksbills {Che- 

 Ionia squamata) 

 recently brought 

 from La paz, Low- 

 e r California, b y 

 Dr. C. H. Town- 

 send for the Amer- 

 ican Museum of 

 Natural History, 

 which measured 

 along the top shell 

 thirty-four inches 

 and thirty-one 

 inches respective- 

 ly. Small hawks- 

 bills do very well 

 i n the Aquarium. 

 We are very much 

 indebted to Mr. 

 M a 1 1 o r y of the 

 Mallory Steamship Company for cooperation in 

 transporting our turtles and tropical fishes from 

 Key West, Florida. Without his help we would 

 have been unable to transport fishes so far and 

 the Aquarium would be without many fishes 

 heretofore not exhibited. Chapman Grant. 



DOUBLE TAILED 

 HORSESHOE CRAB. 



ELEPHANT SEALS. 



THE six young Elephant Seals (Macrorhinus 

 augustirostris) received at the Aquarium 

 from Guadalupe Island off Lower Califor- 

 nia, on March 13, are still on exhibition and are 

 apparently in excellent condition. Since the 

 death of the Alaska fur seals, they have been 

 separated to give them more room and now oc- 

 cupy two of the large floor pools. For some 

 time after these animals were received they did 

 not eat readily and took only a small amount of 

 food, although every effort was made to tempt 

 their appetites. In the course of a little time, 

 however, they all found appetites commensur- 

 ate with their size and at present they consume 

 about twelve to fifteen pounds of food each per 

 day. They are fed on cod and herring with an 

 occasional change to haddock and weakfish. 

 Some of them have learned by their own initia- 

 tive to squirt mouthfuls of water for a short dis- 

 tance and to juggle the wooden ball floating in 

 the pool. 



Two of these seals have been presented to the 

 United States Bureau of Fisheries to which the 

 New York Zoological Society is indebted in 

 many ways for specimens and other aid in keep- 

 ing up the Aquarium exhibits. 



The Bureau of Fisheries will place these 

 specimens in the National Zoological Park at 

 Washington and they will be sent on as soon as 

 suitable quarters can be provided for them. 

 This will permit us to place the remaining four 

 seals in one pool without detriment to their 

 health. R. C. O. 



AN UNUSUAL HORSESHOE CRAB. 



ABNORMALITIES in the appendages of 

 crabs are not uncommon and a number of 

 cases of partial division of the caudal 

 spine of the Horseshoe or King Crab (Limulus 

 Polyphemus') have been noted. The accom- 

 panying picture illustrates the most complete 

 as well as the most symmetrical case of this 

 abnormality of which we have any knowledge. 

 The specimen from which the photograph was 

 taken was a full grown one received at the 

 Aquarium in July from an unknown donor in 

 Port Jefferson, Long Island. It lived for sev- 

 eral weeks in one of our exhibition tanks and 

 attracted much attention among visitors. 



R. C. OSBURN. 



GOITRE IN FISHES. 



IT has been a common experience in fish hatch- 

 eries devoted to the culture of trout and other 



salmonoid fishes that many of the fishes 

 hatched and reared in captivity develop tumors 

 in the throat region. These have been common- 

 ly referred to as goitres or as cancers. Scare 

 headlines have appeared in some of the news- 

 papers suggesting that cancer may be acquired 

 in the human through the medium of a fish diet. 

 Of course there is nothing whatever in such a 

 suggestion even though cancers occasionally oc- 

 cur in fishes. 



The tissues of the thyroid gland, which are 

 affected in goitre, have also been occasionally 

 found to contain cancerous growths. As so lit- 

 tle is known concerning the cause and develop- 

 men of cancer the pathologists have welcomed 

 the opportunity to study the abundant material 

 supplied by the numerous cases of fish goitre in 

 the hatcheries devoted to the salmonoid fishes. 



While as yet nothing has appeared to throw 

 any light on the cancer question the investiga- 

 tions carried out on these thyroid tumors have 

 proved of great interest in other ways. Doctors 

 Marine and Lenhart of the medical department 



