404 SQUALID.E. 



" The Sqiialus borealis is twelve or fourteen feet in 

 length, sometimes more, and six or eight feet in circumfer- 

 ence. The opening of the mouth, which extends nearly 

 across the lower part of the head, is from twenty-one to twen- 

 ty-four inches in width. The teeth are serrated in one jaw, 

 and lancet-shaped and denticulated in the other. It is with- 

 out the anal fin, but has the temporal opening; the spiracles 

 on the neck are five in number on each side. The colour is 

 cinereous grey. The irides are blue, the pupil emerald 

 green," 



" This Shark is one of the foes of the Whale. It bites 

 it and annoys it while living, and feeds on it when dead. 

 It scoops hemispherical pieces out of its body, nearly as big 

 as a person"'s head ; and continues scooping and gorging lump 

 after lump, until the whole cavity of its belly is filled. It 

 is so insensible of pain, that though it has been run through 

 the body with a knife and escaped, yet, after a while, I have 

 seen it return to banquet again on the Whale, at the very 

 spot where it received its wounds. The heart is very small : 

 it performs six or eight pulsations in a minute, and conti- 

 nues its beating for some hours after taken out of the body. 

 The body, also, though separated into any number of parts, 

 gives evidence of life for a similar length of time. It is 

 therefore extremely difficult to kill. It is actually unsafe to 

 trust the hand in its mouth, though the head be separated 

 from the body. Though the Whale-fishers frequently slip 

 into the water where Sharks abound, there has been no in- 

 stance, that I have heard of, of their ever having been at- 

 tacked by the Shark." 



" Besides dead Whales, the Sharks feed on small fishes 

 and crabs. A fish, in size and form resembling a Whiting, 

 was found in the stomach of one that I killed ; but the pro- 

 cess of digestion had gone so far, that its species could not 



