112 PLATYSOMI. 



England, the skirts or wing are considered excel- 

 lent eating.* 



Another reason why sharks do not disturb them, 

 when they become large ; arises, it would seem, 

 from a conscious inability to swallow the morsel. 

 Prowling, says a writer, at the bottom of the ocean, 

 in the dark caverns beyond the ken of human 

 vision, and in cavities, dark and horrible beyond 

 what the imagination has ever conceived, they, 

 perhaps, continue to grow, till they become mon- 

 sters indeed. As we have no exact knowledge of 

 the period to which the lives of fishes are pro- 



* No city in the world, is better and more plentifully sup- 

 plied with fish, than London. Turbot and brill are carried 

 therefrom the coast of Holland ; Salmon from the rivers in 

 Scotland and Ireland, — a few however are caught in the 

 Thames, — at the mouth of which mackerel and cod fish are 

 taken. In 1828, the following calculation was made of the 

 quantity of fish sold at Billingsgate. 



Plaise and skates - - - 50,754 bushels. 



Turbot 87,958 " 



Fresh Cod ... 447,130 " 



Herrings ... - 3,336,407 « 



Haddocks - . . . 482,493 " 



Mackerel .... 3,076,700 « 



Fresh Salmon 45,446 « 



Lobsters - - - . 1,954,600 « 



To supply the actual demands of the people with this food, 

 it required 3,827 vessels; the number of fishermen, there- 

 fore, exclusively devoted to this particular business, and sub- 

 servient to that metropolis alone, is truly immense. 



