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food which allures this fish to Rogge Bay, also improves 

 its flavour; for I could observe, that they were always 

 greedily bought up the instant that they were hauled ashore. 

 The Harder is usually salted, and in that state, is no bad 

 substitute for the Herring. 



" No part of the coast affords greater abundance or more 

 variety of fish than Algoa Bay. But what struck me as most 

 worthy of notice was the vast variety of species associated in 

 the same shoal. Whenever the weather permitted, we had 

 only to push off to a short distance from shore, and rarely 

 failed to load our boat in the course of a few hours. The 

 common and the red Steinbrassen, the Boskop, the Hottentot 

 Jish, the Roinan fish, the Galeon fish, the Geelbek, and 

 Cabillau, were invariably found together. The favourite 

 bait for all was the flesh of the shark, and as there were 

 always three or four species of these animals prowling among 

 the shoal, we never found ourselves at a loss. 



" The character of the Shark for voracity is of long stand- 

 ing, and so firmly believed as to have become proverbial ; it 

 is, nevertheless, a doubt with me whether it be a merited one. 

 We are so much more acutely sensitive to whatever touches 

 ourselves, that when our personal feelings come into play, 

 we are apt to lose sight of all general considerations. We have 

 attached the epithet ravenous to the shark, not because his 

 appetite is with more difficulty satisfied, but because, to satisfy 

 it, he attacks man as well as other animals. When we see the 

 Albicore and Bonito pursue the flying-fish, and devour them 

 in myriads, both in the air and in the water, we regard the 

 scene with great coolness, and talk of the matter merely as 

 a curious fact in Natural History. But when we behold a 

 shark seizincr a messmate who has chanced to fall over- 

 board, and biting off a leg or an arm, or perhaps swallowing 

 him up at once, the case becomes very different. We feel that 

 our own turn may come next, and under that horrible 

 impression, lavish all the worst terms in the language on 

 the animal that shows so little respect for the lord of the 

 creation. On the same principle, the Crocodile bears a 

 character as bad ; and the Boyal Tiger, equally uncere- 



