VORACITY OP SHARKS. 147 



the water, and therefore they eate it as fish; yet when I LlB - ITI - 

 did eate of it at Santo Domingo on a friday, I hadde 

 some scruple, not for that which is spoken, but for that 

 in colour and taste it was like vnto morsel! es of veale, so is 

 it greene, and like vnto a cowe on the hinder partes. I 

 didde woonder at the incredible ravening of the Tiburons, 

 or sharkes, whenas I did see drawne from one (that was 

 taken in the Port) out of his gullet, a butchers great knife, 

 a great yron hooke, and a peece of a cowes head with one 

 whole home; neyther doe I knowe if both were there or 

 no. I did see in a creeke made with that sea, a quarter of 

 a horse for pleasure hanging vpon a stake, whither pre 

 sently came a company of these Tiburons at the smel 

 thereof; and for the more pleasure, this horse flesh was 

 hung in the aire, I knowe not how many hand breadth 

 from the water ; this company of fish flocke about it, leap 

 ing vp, and with a strange nimblenesse cut off both flesh 

 and bone off the horse leg as if it had beene the stalk of a 

 lettuce ; their teeth being as sharpe as a rasour. There are 

 certaine small fishes they call Romeros, 1 which cleave to 

 these Tiburons, neyther can they drive them away, and 

 they are fed with that which falles from the Tiburons. 

 There are other small fishes, which they call flying fishes, 

 the which are found within the tropickes and in no other 

 place, as I thinke : they are pursued by the Dorados, and to 

 escape them they leape out of the sea, and goe a good way 

 in the ayre, and for this reason they are called flying 

 Fishes; they have wings as it were of linnen cloth, or of 

 parchment, which do supporte them some space in the 

 ayre. There did one flie or leape into the shippe wherin 

 I went, the which I did see, and observe the fashion of his 

 wings. 



In the Indian histories there is often mention made of 

 Lizards or Caymans, as they call them, and they are the 



1 Pilot fish. 



L 2 



