=Anniella nigra.= TRANSITION ZONE. _Pacific Fauna._ Monterey County (coast). Monterey, Pacific Grove, Point Pinos, Carmel Bay. San Francisco County. San Francisco. SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, August 18, 1905. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES THIRD SERIES ZOOLOGY VOL. IV, NO. 3 _Issued December 2, 1905_ ON THE OCCURRENCE OF THE LEATHER-BACK TURTLE, DERMOCHELYS, ON THE COAST OF CALIFORNIA BY JOHN VAN DENBURGH _Curator of the Department of Herpetology_ PLATES IX-XI Records of the occurrence of the great marine Leather-back Turtle in the Pacific Ocean are so few that any additional observations are of much interest. Temminck and Schlegel[19] report upon a specimen captured near the Bay of Nagasaki, Japan, in May, 1825. Mr. Swinhoe[20] saw a large one at Amoy, China, in October, 1859. Aflalo[21] has described a pair from Thursday Island, Queensland, Australia. Krefft[22] mentions an example nine feet long from the coast of New South Wales. McCoy[23] figures one caught at Portland, Victoria, Australia, in 1862. Another was harpooned by Captain Subritzky in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, in May, 1892.[24] Boulenger[25] mentions a skull from the Solomon Islands. The species has been recorded from the coast of Chile by Molina[26] and Philippi,[27] and from Guaymas, Mexico, by Mr. Belding.[28] [Footnote 19: Fauna Japonica, 1833, pp. 9, 12.] [Footnote 20: Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. 1870, p. 410.] [Footnote 21: Sketch Nat. Hist. Australia, p. 188.] [Footnote 22: Austral. Vertebr. p. 39.] [Footnote 23: Prodrom. Zool. Victoria, v. 2, 1885, p. 2.] [Footnote 24: Cheeseman, Trans. New Zealand Inst. v. 25, 1893, p. 108.] [Footnote 25: Cat. Chelon. Brit. Mus. 1889, p. 10.] [Footnote 26: Essai sur l'Hist. Nat. du Chili, 1789, p. 194.] [Footnote 27: Ann. Univ. Chile, v. 104, 1899, [separate pp. 3-6], pl.--.] [Footnote 28: West Am. Scientist, v. 3, no. 24, 1887, p. 99.] Thus it appears that the only record of the occurrence of the Leather-back Turtle in the waters of the western coast of the North American continent is the brief note by Mr. Belding in the West American Scientist, which reads as follows: "I saw at Guaymas a Leather-back Turtle (Dermatochelys) which weighed 1,102 lbs." I am now able to record the capture of three specimens of this turtle on the coast of California.