SHARKS 21 



It is a by no means uncommon spectacle to see two large 

 Basking Sharks swimming one behind the other in tandem 

 fashion, and it is likely that the sight of two large dorsal fins 

 showing above the water about 40 or 50 feet apart has sometimes 

 provided the basis of one more story of the great " sea serpent ", 

 especially if the foremost shark is swimming with his mouth 

 open and his snout projecting above the surface. At the 

 British Museum accounts are received from time to time of 

 gigantic " sea serpents " left stranded by the tide,' generally 

 on some remote and inaccessible shore, and these monsters are 

 nearly always described as possessing a long and eel-like body 

 Some of the descriptions are further elaborated by accounts 

 of a " head just like a camel with an upturned nose ", and a 

 " body covered all over with coarse white hair ". On closer 

 investigation these monsters generally prove to be stranded 

 whales or Basking Sharks in an advanced stage of decompo- 

 sition, and the covering of hair is seen to be the frayed muscle- 

 fibres produced by the disintegration of the flesh under the 

 action of the waves. As the carcase of the shark rots on the 

 shore, or is buffeted against the rocks, the whole of the gristly 

 skeleton of the jaws and gill-arches, by far the bulkiest part of 

 the head skeleton, as well as that of the pectoral and pelvic 

 fins, is soon washed away, leaving only the backbone and the 

 somewhat curiously shaped box-like cranium to represent the 

 eel-like body and camel-like head respectively. In one or two 

 cases of recorded " serpents " the shark in question was a 

 male, and the remnants of the pectoral fins and of the pelvics 

 with their associated claspers were still attached to the carcase, 

 giving the appearance of fore and hind limbs. Such a monster 

 was found stranded at Stronsay in the Orkney Islands at the 

 beginning of the nineteenth century, and was actually described 

 as an unknown species of animal in a learned journal under the 

 imposing name of Halsydrus pontoppidiani. In this case, 

 however, a few of the bones were preserved, and on subsequent 

 investigation these were shown to be vertebrae of a large Basking 

 Shark. 



Especially interesting features of the Basking Shark are the 

 minute teeth, the very large gill-clefts, and the curious rakers 

 on the hoop-like gill-arches — features which are found in only 

 one other shark, the Whale Shark already mentioned. These 



