In 1901, Kishinouye of the Imperial Fisheries Bureau, Tokyo, Japan, published an interesting description with a crude figure of a Rhineodon taken in Japan which he thought to be a new species and which he named pentalineatus. Apparently this paper was reproduced in Japanese as follows: "On Yasurizame (Rhinodon pentalineatus)," etc., Dobuts. Zasshi, Tokyo, 1903, Vol. 15, 41-44. This journal I have not been able to locate in America, and my letters to Mr. Kishinouye have seemingly gone astray, but the conjecture expressed above seems reasonable.

Our next and last reference is to the occurrence of this fish in the Philippines, where however, it is not entirely unknown since Dr. H. M. Smith,12 the present U. S. Commissioner of Fisheries, has put on record (1911) an 18-foot specimen taken at Negros Occidental in 1910. Again Dr. David Starr Jordan 13 in 1915 recorded the capture of a 20-foot specimen at the island of Zebu in March of that year. However this last reference in question dates back to 1835 when one Captain H. Piddington published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal a "Notice of an Extraordinary Fish." His account is so circumstantial and so fascinatingly interesting that it seems best to quote him verbatim.

In December, 1816, I commanded a small Spanish brig, and was lying at anchor in the Bay of Mariveles, at the entrance of the Bay of Manilla. One day, about noon, hearing a confusion upon deck, I ran up, and looking over the side, thought, from what I saw, that the vessel had parted [her chain] and was drifting over a bank of white sand and coral, with large black spots. I called out to let go another anchor, but my people, Manilla men, all said, "No Sir; it's only the chacon!" and upon running up the rigging, I saw indeed that I had mistaken the motion of the spotted back of an enormous fish passing under the vessel, for the vessel itself driving over a bank! My boatswain (contramestre), a Cadiz man,

12 Smith, H. M., "Note on the Occurrence of the Whale Shark, Rhinodon typicus, in the Philippine Islands," Proceedings Biological Society of Washington, 1911, Vol. 24, p. 97.

13 Jordan, David Starr, SCIENCE, 1915, March 26, p. 463.

with great foolhardiness jumped into the boat with four men, and actually succeeded in harpooning the fish with the common dolphin-harpoon, or grains, as they are usually called, to which he made fast the deep-sea line; but they were towed at such a fearful rate out to sea, that they were glad to cut from it immediately.

From the view I had of the fish, and the time it took to pass slowly under the vessel, I should suppose it not less than 70 or 80 feet in length. Its breadth was very great in proportion, perhaps not less than 30 feet. The back was so spotted, that, had it been at rest, it must have been taken for a coral shoal, the appearance of which is familiar to seamen. I did not distinguish the head or fins well, from being rather short-sighted, and there being some confusion on board.

As my people seemed to look upon "the chacon," as they called it, almost in the light of an old acquaintance, which it was to many of them who had served in the Spanish gun-boat service, I made many inquiries of them, of which the following is the result.

"1. That there were formerly two of these monsters, and that they lived (teniam su casa) in a cluster of rocks, called Los Puercos, at the southwest entrance of the bay of Mariveles; but that, about ten or fifteen years before this time, or say in 1800, one was driven on shore, and died close to the village in the bay; the inhabitants of which were compelled by the stink to abandon their houses for a time.

"2. That the remaining one frequented the bay of Mariveles and that of Manilla, and it was supposed that it often attacked and destroyed small fishing boats, which, never appeared after going out to fish, though no bad weather had occurred. This last account I afterwards found singularly corroborated.

3. That it was considered as dangerous by the Spanish gunboats; that they always when there kept a swivel loaded, the report of which, they said, drove it away. My principal informant was a man, employed as pilot for the ports in the Philippine Islands, whither I was bound, who had passed his whole life in the gun-boats. He said that one instance of its voracity occurred when he was present. A man, who was pushed overboard in the hurry to look at the monster, being instantly swallowed by it.

"4. The native fishermen of the Bay of Manilla quite corroborate this account, and speak of the monster with great terror."'

About 1820 or 1821, an American ship's boat,

with an officer and a few men, was proceeding from Manilla to Cavite; but meeting with a severe squall and thick weather, they were driven nearly into the middle of the bay. They were pulling in what they thought the best direction, when on a sudden the sailors all dropped their oars. But the mate, who was steering, looking astern of the boat, saw the open jaws of a huge fish almost over him. Having nothing at hand, he threw the boat's tiller into the mouth of the fish, shouting as loud as possible; when, the jaws closing with a tremendous crash, the whole fish, which they described to be more like a spotted whale than anything else, dived beneath the boat, and was seen no more. I do not now recollect the names of the ship, or of the captain, but I thought the circumstance of the spotted appearance a remarkable proof that the story is not an invention. "We do not like to tell it," said the American captain, "for fear of being laughed at; but my officer is quite trustworthy, and we have learned from the fishermen too, that there is some strange species of large fish highly dangerous to their boats."

Like the American officer, I fear almost being laughed at, were it not that, could we collect more facts relative to these strange monsters, they might perhaps at least explain some of the "coral spots" so often mentioned in our charts: independent of its being a matter of great interest to the naturalist. I therefore add here a vague notice of monstrous spotted fish, which are known to the Moluccas.

These are called by the fishermen of Ternate, Celebes, etc., a "Ikon Bintang" (or star-fish) from the bright light which they occasion, and by which they are recognized at great depths at night, in calm weather. The Malay fishermen describe them too as spotted, as large as a whale and highly destructive to nets; which they instantly take up when they see the fish, if they can get time to do so; for it is known to destroy boats, and whole lines of nets and fishing stakes, if it once became entangled amongst them, to the ruin of the poor fishermen. I had the same account corroborated in the Sooloo Islands, both by the Malay and Chinese fishermen; as also at Zebu, in the Philippine Islands. At Sooloo, I was shown large quantities of the skin of a spotted fish, cut into pieces and dried, for sale to the Chinese Junks, which my people said was the skin of young "chacons"-"Piro no son estos como chacon de alla, Senor." "But these are not like our chacon yonder, Sir," was always added. This skin I should have called that of a spotted

shark [of the ordinary kind like the tiger shark]; the tubercles were excessively coarse and rough.

It seems thus certain, that some immense spotted fish, of highly destructive tendencies . . . exists in the Seas of the Eastern Archipelago.14

One hardly knows what to make of this. Andrew Smith (1829 and 1849),15 the first discoverer of the fish, says "Oesophagus rather narrow," while all the writers about Rhineodon who have known the fish at first handnotably Wright16 whose opportunities for study of it were greater than all others—have commented on its mild disposition. On the other hand Dr. Jordan (1915) records that the Zamboanga, Philippine Islands, specimen had in its stomach a number of shoes, leggings, leather belts, etc. The structure of its gills, however, plainly shows that it is a whale not merely in size but in manner of feeding. Hence these stomach contents are, as Dr. Jordan notes, incongruous and inexplicable in the light of its gill structures and small oesophagus.

The latter part of Piddington's account is no less valuable than the first since it ties in well with other accounts of the occurrence of Rhineodon in the waters of the East Indies, particular in the Celebes. Thus Weber (1902, 1913)17 states that he saw several in the strait between Buton and Muna in this archipelago. While in the Java Sea, van Kampen (1908)18 dissected one at Batavia and later obtained a

14 Piddington, H., "Notice of an Extraordinary Fish," Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1835, Vol. 4, pp. 218-222.

15 Smith, Andrew, "Contributions to the Natural History of South Africa," Zoological Journal, 1829, No. 16, p. 643. (Do.) Pisces, in Illustrations of the Zoology of South Africa, plate 26 and description, London, 1849.

16 Wright, E. P., "Six Months at the Seychelles," Spicilegia Biologica, Pt. I., pp. 64-65. Dublin.

17 Weber, Max, "Siboga-Expeditie," Vol. I., Introduction et Description de l'Expedition, p. 88. Leiden, 1902; Vol. 57, "Die Fische der Siboga-Expedition," p. 584. Leiden, 1913. "Die Nahrung von (In Kurze notizen

18 Van Kampen, P. N., Rhinodon typicus Smith,'

photograph of still another which was taken on the north coast of Java. Pertinent here are the words with which I closed the section entitled "Habitat" in my larger paper previously referred to: "its special habitat seems to be in the Indian Ocean and the waters contiguous thereto."

E. W. GUDGER

THE BALTIMORE MEETING OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE

THE American Association for the Advancement of Science and the national scientific societies named below will meet in Baltimore, during convocation week, beginning on Thursday, December 26, 1918:

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE.-President, Professor John M. Coulter, University of Chicago; retiring president, Professor Theodore W. Richards, Harvard University; permanent secretary, Dr. L. O. Howard, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C.; general secretary, O. E. Jennings, Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Section A-Mathematics and Astronomy.-Vicepresident, Professor George D. Birkhoff, Harvard University; secretary, F. R. Moulton, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.

Section B-Physics.-Vice-president, Professor Gordon F. Hull, Dartmouth College; secretary, Professor George W. Stewart, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Ia.

Pro

Section C-Chemistry.-Vice-president, fessor Alexander Smith, Columbia University; secretary, Professor Arthur A. Blanchard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.

Section D-Mechanical Science and Engineering. -Vice-president, Professor Ira N. Hollis, Worcester Polytechnic Institute; secretary, Professor F. L. Bishop, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Section E-Geology and Geography.-Vice-president, Dr. David White, U. S. Geological Survey; secretary, Rollin T. Chamberlin, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.

Section F Zoology.-Vice-president, Professor William Patten, Dartmouth College; secretary,

über Fische das Java-Meéres), Natuurkundig Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Indie, 1908, deel 67, p. 124.

Professor W. C. Allee, Lake Forest College, Lake Forest, Ill.

Section G-Botany.-Vice-president, Dr. A. F. Blakeslee, Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y.; secretary, Dr. Mel T. Cook, Agricultural Experiment Station, New Brunswick, N. J.

Section H-Anthropology and Psychology.Vice-president, Aleš Hrdlička, U. S. National Museum; secretary, Lieutenant Colonel E. K. Strong, Jr., Room 528 State, War and Navy Building, Washington, D. C.

Section I-Social and Economic Science.-Vicepresident, John Barrett, Pan-American Union; secretary, Seymour C. Loomis, 69 Church Street, New Haven, Conn.

Section K-Physiology and Experimental Medicine.-Vice-president, Professor Frederic S. Lee, Columbia University; secretary, Professor J. A. Goldfarb, College of the City of New York, New York City. Section Stuart A. Courtis, Detroit Department of Educational Research; secretary, Major Bird T. Baldwin, Walter Reed General Hospital, Washington, D. C.

L-Education.—Vice-president,

Dr.

Section M-Agriculture.-Vice-president, Professor Henry P. Armsby, State College, Pa.; secretary, Dr. E. W. Allen, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.

AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS OF THE MATHEMATICAL AND THE NATURAL SCIENCES.Will hold Council meeting at 10 A.M., December 27. Secretary, William A. Hedrick, Central High School, Washington, D. C.

AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY.-Will hold joint sessions with Section B, A. A. A. S., from December 26 to 28. President, H. A. Bumstead; secretary; Dayton C. Miller, Case School of Applied Science, Cleveland, Ohio.

OPTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA.-Will meet on Friday, December 27. President, F. E. Wright; secretary, P. G. Nutting, Westinghouse Research Laboratory, East Pittsburgh, Pa.

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTION OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION. December 26-28. President, John F. Hayford; secretary, F. L. Bishop, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pa.

GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA.-December 27 and 28. Joint meeting with Association of American Geographers, afternoon of December 28; joint meeting with Section E, A. A. A. S., on night of December 28. President, Whitman Cross, U. S. Geological Survey; secretary, E. O. Hovey, American Museum of Natural History, New York, N. Y.

ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN GEOGRAPHERS.-December 27 and 28. Joint meeting with Geological Society of America on afternoon of December 28. President, Nevin M. Fenneman, New York City; secretary, O. L. Fassig (absent).

PALEONTOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA.-December 28. President, F. H. Knowlton, U. S. National Museum; secretary, R. S. Bassler, U. S. National Museum, Washington, D. C.

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF NATURALISTS.-December 28. Annual dinner, Saturday night. Vicepresident, Guy N. Collins (in the chair); secretary, Bradley M. Davis, Statistical Division, U. S. Food Administration, Washington, D. C.

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF ZOOLOGISTS.-December 26 to 28. Joint session with American Society of Naturalists Saturday morning, December 28. President, George Lefevre, University of Missouri; acting secretary, W. C. Allee, Lake Forest College, Lake Forest, Ill.

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGISTS. December 26 and 27. President, E. D. Ball; secretary, Albert F. Burgess, Gipsy Moth Laboratory, Melrose Highlands, Mass.

BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA.-December 26 to 28. Joint session with Section G, A. A. A. S., and American Phytopathological Society on Thursday afternoon, December 26. Joint sessions with American Phytopathological Society on Friday and Saturday, December 27 and 28. Joint session with Ecological Society of America on Saturday morning, December 28. President, William Trelease, University of Illinois; secretary, J. R. Schramm, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y.

AMERICAN PHYTOPATHOLOGICAL SOCIETY.-December 23 to 28. Joint meetings with Botanical Society of America on Friday and Saturday, December 27 and 28. Tenth anniversary dinner, 6.30 P.M., Wednesday, December 25. President, E. M. Freeman; secretary, C. L. Shear, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.

ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA.-December 26 to 28. Joint session with American Society of Zoologists, Friday morning, December 27. Joint session with Botanical Society of America on Saturday morning, December 28. President, Henry C. Cowles, University of Chicago; secretary, Forrest Shreve, Desert Laboratory, Tucson, Arizona. AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION.December 26 to 28. Joint session with Section H, A. A. A. S., on December 26, and joint session with American Folk-Lore Society on December 27. President, A. L. Kroeber, Affiliated Medical Col

leges, San Francisco; acting secretary, Bruce W. Merwin, University of Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia, Pa.

AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION.-December 27 and 28. Will hold joint sessions with Sections H and L. Secretary, Herbert S. Langfleld, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

AMERICAN FOLK-LORE SOCIETY.-December 27. Will hold joint session with American Anthropological Association. President, C. Marius Barbeau; secretary, Charles Peabody, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

AMERICAN METRIC ASSOCIATION.-December 27 to 28. The session of Saturday will be held at the Bureau of Standards, Washington. President, George F. Kunz; secretary, Howard Richards, Jr., 156 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y.

SOCIETY OF AMERICAN BACTERIOLOGISTS.-Will meet on Friday and Saturday, December 27 and 28. President, R. C. Buchanan, University of Wisconsin; secretary, A. Parker Hitchens, Army Medical School, 462 Louisiana Avenue, Washington, D. C.

AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR HORTICULTURAL SCIENCE. -December 27 and 28. President, C. A. McCue; secretary, C. P. Close, College Park, Md.

SOCIETY OF AMERICAN FORESTERS.-December 27 and 28. President, Filibert Roth, U. S. Department of Agriculture; secretary, E. R. Hodson, U. S. Forest Service, Washington, D. C.

SCHOOL GARDEN ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA.December 23 and 24. President, J. H. Francis; vice-president and acting secretary, V. E. Kilpatrick, 124 W. 30th Street, New York, N. Y. AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS.-December 28. President, Professor John M. Coulter, University of Chicago; secretary, Dr. H. W. Tyler, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, Mass.