350 The American Naturalist. [April, 



they are exterminated from another of the Galapagos group. The 

 giant tortoises of the Mascarene Islands were extremely abundant in 

 the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but their use as food caused 

 their extinction at the beginning of the present century. "Save the 

 few bones rescued from the marshes of Mauritius and the caves of 

 Rodriguez, nothing is left to show that these large and formerly 

 abundant tortoises ever existed." 



The history of the Tile fish (Lopholatilus chamceleonticep ) M i 



the strangest known. So far as we have any information, no one, 

 fisherman or naturalist, ever saw a tile fish (the common name is an 

 abbreviation of the generic) until March 1879, when a Gloucester 

 fishing schooner took about 6000 pounds. In the following years 

 1880 and 1881 a few were taken by the U. S. Fish Commission 

 Steamer. In March and April 1882 vessels arriving in American 

 ports reported passing through large numbers of dead and dying fish 

 off the southern coast of New England and Long Island. Vessels 

 reported sailing for forty to sixty miles through floating fish, (in one 

 instance through 150 miles) so that it became evident that a vast 

 destruction had taken place. Capt. Collins estimates from these reports 

 that an area of 5000 to 7000 square statute miles were so thickly cov- 

 ered that the total numbers must have exceeded a billion. The next 

 fall the Fish Commission searched in vain for these fish on the ground 

 where they were formerly so abundant ; and no one has since reported 

 a specimen. 



-Vertebrates.— Carl H. and Rosa H. Eigeu- 

 s of South 

 1135 species are enumerated. The great richness of the 

 fauna in the Nematognathi is here made very prominent, 449 species 

 of that order being enumerated. 



Mr. A. J. Allen 2 publishes the first part (Osines) of a catalogue »r 

 the birds collected by Mr. Herbert H. Smith at Chapada, Ma«° 

 Groso, Brazil. Mr. Smith and his party obtained some »' ,,(l!l - iaIi '*" '" 



present paper. In all the collection represents about o->0 >}»■*■"■'* 



