268 THE LIVING ANIMALS OF THE WORLD 



SHARK (of which a photograph, taken at Mevagissey, is given below), ilhistrates in its harmless 

 person the fallacy of condemning all sharks as man-eaters, since in this, the largest of its 

 race, we have an absolute!)' innocuous fish. From its habit of lying at the surface with the 

 large back-fin erect, it is also known as the Sail-fis!i, while the equally appropriate name of 

 Sun-fish sometimes causes confusion with other British fishes properly so called. 



A commoner British shark is the BLUE Shark, small examples of which, weighing 30 

 or 40 lbs., the writer has often killed with the rod at Mevagissey. When thus hooked, this 

 fish has a curious and very tr)'ing habit of revolving rapidly in the water, scoring its own 

 granulated skin with the line. The PoRBEAGLE-Sll.\RK, another Cornish species, is of thicker 

 build than the last, and swims with far less graceful movements. It is a deep brown colour 

 above, and its general outline may be likened to that of a torpedo. The Fox-SHARK, or 



l^Aievagisstr 



BASKINC,-bH.\RK 



Regularly hunted on the lue^l coast of Ire/an J for the sake of the oil obtainable from its lii'tr. Note the keel by the side of the tail 



Thresher, so often seen on hot summer da\-s leaping out of water among the pilchard-shoals, 

 is easily recognised, even at considerable distances, b)- the disprop'irtionately long upper lobe 

 of the tail-fin. This is the shark which attacks certain of the Whale Tribe. Many who 

 stay at home find it agreeable to cast doubt on the story; but the writer has, in Australian 

 seas, witnessed the sight of two of these sharks flinging themselves on the back of an 

 apparently exhausted whale in such unmistakable circumstances that the only alternati\e 

 (which the reader may accept, if preferred) is to suppose that they were all congenial 

 playmates. 



Before specifying some general characters of this interesting group of predatory fishes, it 

 may be as well briefly to summarise the British Dog-FIShes; for the Hammekhead-shark, 

 very common in southern seas, is so rare a visitor to Britain as to be negligible in an 

 epitome of the group. The dog-fishes, then, which trouble fishermen arc the SMOOTH HoUND 



