the various Species of Saxvfijb. 275 
The ro/rum or fnout in every fpecies which I have yet feen has 
been ftraight, or at moft curved upwards in a very trifling degree, 
and the reprefentations of it, in authors who have eund it, lead 
us to think the fame; one inftance only excepted, wherein a fœtus 
of one with twenty-fix fpines in the roftrum is engraved, with 
that part bent in the form of a bow*: this furely muft be a fingular 
lufus nature; unlefs we can fuppofe it to have been bent while 
frefh, and fo dried, in order to enhance the value of the fpecimen 
by exciting the wonder of the naturalift. 
The Sawf/b is faid to be found both in the northern and /outhern 
parts of the world, and fome have been met with of our firft and 
{fecond defcribed of fourteen or fifteen feet in length, the fnout 
meafuring one-third of the total length. ‘The ancients had but a` 
Very imperfect knowledge of the fubjeét, when Pliny afferts, that 
are met with ir in the indian Sea of two hundred cubits in 
length t; ir er pl * calls it the mighty fifh called 
E I. The fame notion alio had Ædrovandus, when he figured an 
idéal one of a cetaceous magnitude, with a creft on the front, 
fpouting the water from tubes on the top of the head, in the man- 
ner of fome of the whale genus. The fame may alfo be feen in 
Gefner, Pifo, Marcgrave, and others, who have copied from one ano- 
ther. On a level with thefe ftands O/aus, who takes for granted, that 
the Sawf/b is able to divide a fhip in two with the frout §. 
However, to fay no more of fuch idle tales, it is certainly in the 
power of fifhes of this kind to be injurious to the more defencelefs, 
* Bloch. Fifch. DeutcM. t. 120. 
+ Plin. Nat. Hifl. lib. 9. cap. 3. 
+ Id. lib. 36. cap. 5. 
$ “ Te will fwim under the fhips, and cut them, that the water may come in, and he 
may feed upon the men when the fhip is drowned.” O/aus Magnus, Hifl. Goth. book 21. 
ch. 10, 
Nn2 Frefier 
