264 THE SHARK. 



which 1 have heard named, by seamen, the 

 ground shark : the teeth procured from this spe- 

 cies differ from all others that I have seen ; they 

 are long, rather curved inwards, flattened ante- 

 riorh^, sharp pointed, unserrated at the edges, and 

 have two rather long fangs. They are considered 

 rare at New Zealand, and the teeth are highly 

 valued by the natives, who wear them, with a 

 hole bored through them, as appendages to their 

 ears ; they carve their green jasper stone also in 

 the form of these teeth, and wear them in a 

 similar manner : these teeth were so highly 

 prized by the natives, that to procure one was a 

 matter of difficulty. I for some time, since my 

 return to England, endeavoured to ascertain the 

 species to which these teeth belonged, but I was 

 unsuccessful, until lately examining the jaws of 

 the various species of sharks in the Museum of 

 the Royal College of Surgeons, in London, I 

 found it to be the Squalus cor7iubicus, or por- 

 beagle shark, which is thus noticed in the pub- 

 lished catalogue of the college : — 



"No. 1832. — The skull, and part of the spine, 

 of a small Porbeagle shark. Squalus cornubicus. 

 Fig. Borlase's History of Cornwall. Habitat. 

 The British seas/' 



This species, from its magnitude when full 

 grown, has sometimes been confounded with the 



