218 DR. JOHNSTON ON THE LONG-TAILED SHARK. 



it. Secure your prize, — then submit to what the fates de- 

 cree !"f The ancients, we know, had womanish longings in 

 their dainties, but it is scarcely to be believed that our long- 

 tailed shark was the Rhodian galeus for the taste of which a 

 man should risk the taste of death. I therefore agree with 

 Aldrovandus and with Gesner, that Archestratus is not to be 

 put on trial as to the delicacy of his taste, on the presumed 

 identity of his Alopex with our Thresher. 



Rondeletius comes forward as a witness to prove the as- 

 sertion of Aristotle, that the young re-enter the body of their 

 parent ; but the evidence he adduces is indirect and scarcely 

 satisfactory. His words are, — " Postremo fa3tus suos, intra se 

 recipit, ago cujus rei testes sumus oculati. Quum enim ali- 

 quando in litore dissecaretur, in ejus ventriculo catulos vidi- 

 mus, quos pro cibo devorasse piscatores existimabant, sed cum 

 vivi atque illaesi inventi essent, eos in metu intro receptos a 

 parente dubitandum non est. Neque obstat caudae longitudo ; 

 etenim quum adhuc parvi sunt et tenelli foetus, mollis ea est 

 et flexibilis. Id igitur cum vulpes faciat, paucique alii galei 

 qui certissimis notis a Vulpe distant, dubiam nemeni esse de- 

 bet quin marinam vulpem veram reprgesentaverimus." — De 

 piscibus, p. 338. 



John Caius, — of whom we read that " few men might have 

 had a longer, none ever had a shorter epitaph, — Fui Caius" 

 — was the first to describe this fish as a visitant of the Bri- 

 tish coast, and his description of it is very good. The indi- 

 vidual he saw was captured between Calais and Dover, on 

 the 16th of June 1569. He tells us that the flesh is like that 

 of the salmon, and eatable, but not grateful to every palate, — 

 which I ween it would have been, had it indeed tasted as 

 tastes our peerless queen of the Tweed, when she lies smoking 

 on the boards of a Kettle ! 



The Rev. Dr. Borlase is next in order, and he thus writes : 

 . — " Of the shark kind (beside others which have been reck- 

 oned by Mr. Ray, who came to Penzance on purpose to col- 

 lect and examine the sorts of our Cornish sea- fish) we have 

 the sea-fox, Vulpecula or Simia inarina of authors ; this 



+ I am obliged to the Rev. Thomas Riddell of Masham, for the information 

 taken from Aristotle and Archestratus. 



