FISHES PHENOMENAL AND ECONOMICAL. 193 



and has been met with by the writer at such remote locations as Tasmania, Moreton 

 Bay in Queensland, and Fremantle in Western Australia. The specimen figured on 

 page 194 was taken at the last-named station. The Oyster-Crusher, Pig-fish, and 

 Bull-Dog Shark are names by which it is locally known to Australian fishermen. 



Phenomenal Sharks of the more ordinary type are by no means strangers to 

 Australian waters. Examples of the Tiger Shark, Galeocerdo Rayneri, and the Blue 

 Shark, Carcharias glaucus, have been authentically attested to up to twenty or twenty- 

 five feet in length, and according to their measurement with relation to the boats 

 alongside which these monsters have occasionally put in an appearance, may even 

 attain to thirty feet. An original method of disposing of a large shark was recently 

 brought before the notice of the writer. The fish, as commonly happens, was cruising 

 around a steam-boat anchored in Sydney Harbour on the look out for flotsam and 

 jetsam. The cook happened to have a pumpkin on the boil in the galley and, by a 

 sudden inspiration, conceived the idea of throwing it to the shark. It was imme- 

 diately seized and swallowed, followed by a commotion suggestive of a dynamite 

 explosion. When the troubled waters sank to rest the shark lay lifeless on their 

 surface ! The experiment, though novel and successful in its object, was, it must be 

 admitted, rather rough upon the shark. 



The Elephant-fish, or Southern Chimsera, Callorhynchus antarcticus, undoubtedly 

 claims a front place in the ranks of abnormal or phenomenal members of the Shark 

 tribe. It has already received a brief share of attention at page 167, in conjunction 

 with the reference to its effigy in Plaster of Paris, photographically reproduced in 

 company with many other species in Plate XXVIII. The specimen No. 20, there 

 portrayed, represented a full-grown female individual, which, after capture, deposited 

 one of its singular, flattened, horny, egg cases. This structure, allowing for the 

 absence of the horny tendrils at the four corners, somewhat resembles those of our 

 British Dog-fishes, of the genus Scyllium. The edges of the case are, however, 

 much more flattened and expanded, while, in order to secure the adherence of the 

 organism to submarine objects, the whole under surface is coated with fine flocculent 

 filaments, which are viscid and adhesive when the structure is first extruded from the 

 oviduct. As shown by the replica of the egg case that was made in plaster in 

 conjunction with the parent fish, its size is relatively considerable. 



The chief interest attached to this type is its near relationship, and occurrence 

 as a complementary form, to Chimcera, monstrosa, the Chimaera or Rabbit-fish, and 



other species of the same genus, of the North Temperate and Arctic seas. The male 

 BB 



