CLASS PISCES. n<) 



Order ELASMOBRANCHII. 



Sub-Order PLAGIOSTOMATA. 



Family CARCHARIID^. 



Genus GALEUS, Cuvier. 



Galeus vulgaris, Fleming. TOPER OR SWEET WILLIAM. 



This Shark is, in my experience, but rarely taken on our 

 coast. One, caught by trawling in the Wallet, on October 23rd, 

 1886, was thought by its captor of sufficient rarity to make it 

 worth exhibiting in the town of Colchester. The capture 

 of another below Brightlingsea, in a shrimp-trawl, is noted 

 (Essex Nat., vol. ii., p. 137). This was a female, measuring 

 four feet nine inches long. Another, also a female, and 

 five feet six inches in length, was captured near Clacton 

 pier, on November 1st, 1888 (Essex Nat., vol. ii., p. 256). 



Family LAMNID^. 



Genus LAMNA, Cuvier. 



Lamna cornubica, Cuvier. PORBEAGLE OR BEAUMARIS SHARK. 



A fine specimen of this Shark was captured in a herring-net 

 on the Essex coast in 1874. It measured eight feet two inches 

 in length, and weighed from sixteen to twenty stone (Land 

 and Water, Oct. loth, 1874, p. 285). Another was taken off 

 Harwich, by a lugger fishing for mackerel, and was exhibited 

 at Colchester and Ipswich. It measured between nine and 

 ten feet in length (Essex Nat., vol. vi., p. 154). Soon after, 

 on December 8th, 1892, a third was secured by Mr. Henry 

 Gentry, of St. Osyth, in the estuary of the Colne. This one, 

 a male, was seven feet ten inches long (ibid., p. 207). 



