Zoologica (Volume 1); Scientific Contributions of the New York Zoological Society (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: from Wright and others, with a line drawing reproduction apparently of Thurston's figure of the Madras specimen. The above called forth a letter from Mr. A. J. Boland in the next issue of the same journal in which he speaks. of having seen in the Colombo Museum in 1903 a fine specimen of the great spotted shark. This he thought to have been from 30 to 35 feet long. "Around it were placed ordinary sharks, which looked like parr to salmon in comparison.1 Habitat. This singular fish seems to be solitary in habit but of wide distribution. It was first reported from Table Bay, Cape of Good Hope, by Smith in 1829. Next Buist (1850) writes of a giant shark frequently captured at the head of the Arabian Sea at Kurrachee, west of the mouth of the Indus. Later Steuart (1862) reports it as not uncommon around Ceylon, as does Haly (1883, '84, '90), and Thurston (1894), while Shipley and Hornell record it in 1905. Gill (1865) records a specimen taken in the Gulf of California about 1858. While Wright notes it as abundant at the Seychelles about 1869, as does Pike (1873) quoting from the notes of Swinburne Ward. Next we hear from Chierchia (1884) of its capture in Panama Bay, while in the same article Giinther reports that Nation in 1878 had examined one at Callao. Next, omitting Thurston's Ceylon notes (1894) already referred to, but recalling the 22-foot specimen that he found ashore near Madras in 1889, we find this fish reported on the coast of Japan by Kishinouye in 1901. The following year (1902) Bean recorded its first occurrence in American waters and indeed in the Atlantic Ocean. In 1902, Weber saw several in the Java Sea, while six years later Van Kampen recorded it in Batavia Bay, and in 1913 Weber refers to its capture on the north coast of Java. In 1908 Lloyd rec...