116 
Remesal (Madrid, 1619), libro xi., cap. xviii.-xx., pp. 
720-733, a province ‘el Manché’ mentioned as one of 
the provinces of Vera Paz, the Indians of which were 
converted in the years 1603 and 1604. Mr. Mauds- 
lay’s map contains the Rio del Manché, an eastern 
tributary of the Rio Sta. Izabel, which latter, in its 
lower course, is called Rio de la Pasion. The prov- 
ince of Manché must evidently have been situated on 
the river of the same name, to the north of the village 
Cahabon, which was the starting-point of the Padres 
for their trip of conversion, as Remesal states. 
Whether the name of this province, ‘Manché,’ has 
any connection with the word ‘ Menche,’ as Mr. Rock- 
stroh says the ruins on the Usumacinta (separated by 
a mountain chain from the central part of the Peten 
district) have, remains to be seen. 
In regard to the notice in the same number and on 
the same page of Science, ‘Explorations in Guate- 
mala,’ I beg to add, that the ruins of Tikal had been 
discovered in February, 1848, by Mr. Modesto Men- 
dez, corregidor of the district of 
Peten, and by the gobernador 
Ambrosio Tut. Mr. Hesse, min- 
ister of Prussia in Central Ameri- 
ca, published the report of Mr. 
Mendez, dated March 8, 1848, in 
vol. i. of the ‘ Zeitschrift fiir all- 
gemeine erdkunde’ (Berlin, 1853, 
pp. 162-168), and added some 
general remarks, and two plates 
which he had carefully copied 
from Mr. Mendez’s drawings. 
These plates contain the illus- 
trations of four sculptures (in 
wood) and five monoliths discov- 
ered by Mr. Mendez in Tikal, 
and those of four monoliths dis- 
covered by him in 1852 in Dolores, 
—another town with ruins, to 
the south of Tikal, in the same 
district of Peten. The chairman 
of the Royal geographical society 
is therefore mistaken in stating 
(p. 203 of the Proceedings) that 
the ruins of Tikal were described 
for the first time by Mr. Maudslay. 
The report of Modesto Mendez 
is mentioned by Mr. A. F. Ban- 
delier in his Bibliography-of Yu- 
catan and Central America, in ‘Proceedings of the 
American antiquarian society,’ 1880, p. 92. 
HERMAN BIGALKE, 
787 Eighth Avenue, New York. 
Barn-owls in Missouri. 
In Science for Jan. 11 the occurrence of the barn- 
owl in southern Ohio in unusual numbers the present 
winter is recorded. The same fact has been noticed 
here. Four have been caught in the city in as 
many different buildings, anda number took up their 
habitation in an unused chimney in one of the prin- 
cipal residences in the city. Another was killed a 
few miles out. They are so unusual here that no one 
knew what kind of owl they were when the first was 
captured. F, A. SAMPSON. 
Sedalia natural history society, 
Sedalia, Mo. 
A PECULIAR SELACHIAN. 
Tue outlines given here are taken from a 
shark recently discovered in Japanese waters. 
SCIENCE. 
at. 
It is a form of more than ordinary interest on. 
account of the respects in which it differs from — 
‘Is it a sea-ser- — 
the majority of its kindred. 
pent?’ is asked by all who see it. ‘Those who 
believe in the existence of the ocean monster 
may certainly derive some encouragement from 
the discovery. About the throat the appear- 
ance is decidedly fish-like. The body is long 
and slender, five feet in total length, and less 
than four inches in greatest diameter; it be- 
comes compressed and thin toward the tail. 
The head is broad, slightly convex on the 
crown, and has a look about it that reminds 
one of some of the venomous snakes. The 
mouth is anterior and very wide. As in other 
sharks, the teeth are arranged in rows across 
CHLAMYDOSELACHUS ANGUINEUS. 
the jaws; they are all alike. Each tooth has 
three slender, curved, inward-directed cusps, 
and a broad base, which extends back in a pair 
of points under the next tooth, thereby secur- 
ing firmness, and preventing reversion. In the 
twenty-eight rows of the upper jaws, and twen- 
ty-seven of the lower, there are three times as 
many rows of the fangs or cusps. Of the six 
gill-openings, the anterior are very wide. Un- 
like other Selachians, in this the frill, or flap, 
covering the first opening is free across the — 
isthmus, as in fishes, and hangs down about an 
inch. On the body the slime-canals — shown 
by the dotted lines in the sketch — form con- 
tinuous grooves, as if the skin had been cut — 
with a sharp knife; they extend to the ex- 
The spiracles are so_ 
treme end of the tail. 
small as to be useless ; but, being present, they 
point toward an ancestor, a bottom-feeder, in 
