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.

G. CHIERCHIA.

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.

ALBERT GUNTHER.

Natural History Museum, July 30.

* * * * *

THE GREELY ARCTIC EXPEDITION.

[Illustration:  THE GREELY ARCTIC EXPEDITION.—­THE FARTHEST POINT NORTH.]