Honolulu July 1.
The shark captured by the Vettor Pisani in the Gulf of Panama is _Rhinodon
typicus_, probably the most gigantic fish in existence. Mr. Swinburne Ward,
formerly commissioner of the Seychelles, has informed me that it attains to
a length of 50 feet or more, which statement was afterward confirmed by
Prof. E.P. Wright. Originally described by Sir A. Smith from a single
specimen which was killed in the neighborhood of Cape Town, this species
proved to be of not uncommon occurrence in the Seychelles Archipelago,
where it is known by the name of "Chagrin." Quite recently Mr. Haly
reported the capture of a specimen on the coast of Ceylon. Like other large
sharks (_Carcharodon rondeletii, Selache maxima_, etc.), Rhinodon has a
wide geographical range, and the fact of its occurrence on the Pacific
coast of America, previously indicated by two sources, appears now to be
fully established. T. Gill in 1865 described a large shark known in the
Gulf of California by the name of "Tiburon ballenas" or whale-shark, as a
distinct genus--_Micristodus punctatus_--which, in my opinion, is the same
fish. And finally, Prof. W. Nation examined in 1878 a specimen captured at
Callao. Of this specimen we possess in the British Museum a portion of the
dental plate. The teeth differ in no respect from those of a Seychelles
Chagrin; they are conical, sharply pointed, recurved, with the base of
attachment swollen. Making no more than due allowance for such variations
in the descriptions by different observers as are unavoidable in accounts
of huge creatures examined by some in a fresh, by others in a preserved,
state, we find the principal characteristics identical in all these
accounts, viz.: the form of the body, head, and snout, relative
measurements, position of mouth, nostrils, and eyes, dentition, peculiar
ridges on the side of the trunk and tail, coloration, etc. I have only to
add that this shark is stated to be of mild disposition and quite harmless.
Indeed, the minute size of its teeth has led to the belief in the
Seychelles that it is a herbivorous fish, which, however, is not probable.