Knowing how much _Nature_ is read by all the naturalists of the world, I
send these few lines, which I hope will be of some interest.
The Italian R.N. corvette Vettor Pisani left Italy in April, 1882, for a
voyage round the world with the ordinary commission of a man-of-war. The
Minister of Marine, wishing to obtain scientific results, gave orders to
form, when possible, a marine zoological collection, and to carry on
surveying, deep-sea soundings, and abyssal thermometrical measurements. The
officers of the ship received their different scientific charges, and Prof.
Dohrn, director of the Zoological Station at Naples, gave to the writer
necessary instructions for collecting and preserving sea animals.
At the end of 1882 the Vettor Pisani visited the Straits of Magellan, the
Patagonian Channels, and Chonos and Chiloe islands; we surveyed the Darwin
Channel, and following Dr. Cuningham's work (who visited these places on
board H.M.S. Nassau), we made a numerous collection of sea animals by
dredging and fishing along the coasts.
While fishing for a big shark in the Gulf of Panama during the stay of our
ship in Taboga Island, one day in February, with a dead clam, we saw
several great sharks some miles from our anchorage. In a short time several
boats with natives went to sea, accompanied by two of the Vettor Pisani's
boats.
Having wounded one of these animals in the lateral part of the belly, we
held him with lines fixed to the spears; he then began to describe a very
narrow curve, and irritated by the cries of the people that were in the
boats, ran off with a moderate velocity. To the first boat, which held the
lines just mentioned, the other boats were fastened, and it was a rather
strange emotion to feel ourselves towed by the monster for more than three
hours with a velocity that proved to be two miles per hour. One of the
boats was filled with water. At last the animal was tired by the great loss
of blood, and the boats assembled to haul in the lines and tow the shark on
shore.
With much difficulty the nine boats towed the animal alongside the Vettor
Pisani to have him hoisted on board, but it was impossible on account of
his colossal dimensions. But as it was high water we went toward a sand
beach with the animal, and we had him safely stranded at night.
With much care were inspected the mouth, the nostrils, the ears, and all
the body, but no parasite was found. The eyes were taken out and prepared
for histological study. The set of teeth was all covered by a membrane that
surrounded internally the lips; the teeth are very little, and almost in a
rudimental state. The mouth, instead of opening in the inferior part of the
head, as in common sharks, was at the extremity of the head; the jaws
having the same bend.
Cutting the animal on one side of the backbone we met (1) a compact layer
of white fat 20 centimeters deep; (2) the cartilaginous ribs covered with
blood vessels; (3) a stratum of flabby, stringy, white muscle, 60
centimeters high, apparently in adipose degeneracy; (4) the stomach.
By each side of the backbone he had three chamferings, or flutings, that
were distinguished by inflected interstices. The color of the back was
brown with yellow spots that became close and small toward the head, so as
to be like marble spots. The length of the shark was 8.90 m. from the mouth
to the _pinna caudalis_ extremity, the greatest circumference 6.50 m., and
2.50 m. the main diameter (the outline of the two projections is made for
giving other dimensions).
The natives call the species _Tintoreva_, and the most aged of the village
had only once before fished such an animal, but smaller. While the animal
was on board we saw several _Remora_ about a foot long drop from his mouth;
it was proved that these fish lived fixed to the palate, and one of them
was pulled off and kept in the zoological collection of the ship.
The Vettor Pisani has up the present visited Gibraltar, Cape Verde Islands,
Pernambuco, Rio Janeiro, Monte Video, Valparaiso, many ports of Peru,
Guayaquil, Panama, Galapagos Islands, and all the collections were up to
this sent to the Zoological Station at Naples to be studied by the
naturalists. By this time the ship left Callao for Honolulu, Manila, Hong
Kong, and, as the Challenger had not crossed the Pacific Ocean in these
directions, we made several soundings and deep-sea thermometrical
measurements from Callao to Honolulu. Soundings are made with a steel wire
(Thompson system) and a sounding-rod invented by J. Palumbo, captain of the
ship. The thermometer employed is a Negretti and Zambra deep-sea
thermometer, improved by Captain Maguaghi (director of the Italian R.N.
Hydrographic Office).
With the thermometer wire has always been sent down a tow-net which opens
and closes automatically, also invented by Captain Palumbo. This tow-net
has brought up some little animals that I think are unknown.