DR. JOHNSTON ON THE LONG-TAILED SHARK. 217 



Tbubbxr or Lomo-tailed Shark, Mitchell Trant. of New York, i. p. 482; and 

 Med. Repository, 2 Uexade, vol. ii. p. 177. New York, 1835. 



The 'Ax«^))^, Aristotle tells us, is a Shark or galeoid fish ; it 

 is ovo-viviparous, having eggs, but bringing forth its young 

 alive ; and these young ones can re-enter the womb of their 

 parent, as happenswith most other sharks. Aristotle goes on to 

 say, that "the fishes coWed/oxeSy when they feel that they have 

 swallowed the hook, have a means of escape as well as the sco- 

 lopendra, for running forward considerably towards the line 

 they bite it through ; for they are taken in some places with 

 a number of hooks set together, in rapid and deep places." — 

 There is certainly little in this history to enable us to iden- 

 tify the species, but it has been conjectured that Aristotle was 

 led to confer upon his fish the name of *aa«^»j^, or Fox, " from 

 the length and roughness of its tail," a character which suits 

 the Shark in question, when at least we abate the " roughness" 

 that the conjecturer has unwisely added to give greater 

 plausibility to his guess.* 



There is not to be found in ancient writers anything addi- 

 tional to what Aristotle has told us of the Sea-fox. In one 

 place, Pliny mentions the Alopecias as one of those fishes 

 which are confined to salt water ; and in another the Sea- 

 foxes are quoted for their cunning, the anecdote of their bit- 

 ing the line being instanced as the proof It is thus trans- 

 lated by Doctor Philemon Holland: — " But the sea-Foxes in the 

 like dangers haue this cast with them, namely, to gather in 

 and let it go downe into the throat more and more still of 

 the line, vntill he come to the weakest part thereof, which he 

 may easily fret and gnaw asunder." 



AthenoBus afibrds no particulars for quotation. — Archestra- 

 tus, who lived the life of Sardanapalus, gives this fatherly 

 advice to his friends : — " If at Rhodes one should refuse to 

 sell you the Sea-fox (galeus alopex), the fish which at Syra- 

 cuse they call the fat dog, steal it, though you were to die for 



* Jonston says, — " Yel a caudoa longitudine, vcl insuavi ingratoque gustu, 

 Tel ab astu ingeuioque, nomcn ( fM/pecii/ajsortibuscsse videatur.'-Aldrovan- 

 das thii\k8 it not doubtful tbat the name comes from the iugrateful savour of 

 the flesh, similar to that of the Fox. And Gesner and Salvianus derive the 

 name fix>m the same source. 



