DIL JOHNSTON ON THE LONQ-TAILED SHARK. 215 



A Description of the Long-tailed Shark. By George Johnston, 



M.D., &c 



On the 30th of July 1846, a long-tailed Shark was cap- 

 tured in our -bay. It had got entangled in a herring net, and 

 killed itself in its efforts to escape. None of our fishennen had 

 ever seen the fish before, which may therefore be considered 

 amongst the very rarest of our visitanta 



The total length of the specimen was eleven feet and an 

 inch, and the circumference in front of the dorsal fin, where 

 the body was thickest, was three feet two inches. The length 

 of the body was a little upwards of five feet six inches, being 

 about half an inch shorter than the tail ; and it was this dis- 

 proportionate length of the tail that gave to the creature its 

 peculiar and bizarre appearance. The body was fusiform, 

 Qven, and very smooth to the eye, with a silky glossiness, of a 

 leaden colour, paler on the sides, and white marbled with 

 bluish on the ventral surface. Although apparently very 

 smooth, yet the resistance to the finger when it was drawn 

 from the tail forwards, proved that the skin was finely shag- 

 reened. The tail was shaped like a straight sword. Its ori- 

 gin was marked by a deep incissure or fosse in the back, and 

 from this it tapered gradually to the tip, where it is obtusely 

 pointed ; and just in front and beneath the termination there 

 is a small lobe. A sort of narrow fin ran along the inferior 

 edge, becoming broader towards the base or origin, where it 

 dilated into a falciform lobe. 



Snout obtusely pointed ; nostrils small, half way between 

 the snout and mouth ; mouth inferior, lunate ; teeth propor- 

 tionally small, triangular, cuspidate, smooth ; eye circular, an 

 inch in diameter, dark, with an elliptical pupil ; pectoral fins 

 falciform ; dorsal fin with a dilated base prolonged behind 

 into a lobe ; ventral fins meeting below on the mesial line, 

 and concealing the vents ; adipose fin small, rhomboidal, 

 elongated and pointed posteriorly ; nearly opposite, but a lit- 

 tle posterior, to this fin, on the ventral line, there is a small 

 anal fin. 



Length from the snout to the eye four inches ; length from 



