C30 



SHARK. 



Now though the sharks cannot be said to be the 

 monarchs of nature's productions in the ocean, as the 

 Carnivora are on the land, or the birds of prey in the 

 air, yet they are unquestionably, in some of the spe- 

 cies at least, the most powerful, the most active, and 

 the most sanguinary of the fishes. The only inhabit- 

 ants of the water which have so much the mastery of 

 them as to be able to make a meal of a large shark 

 of the most formidable species, are the great-toothed 

 whales ; and they are mammalia, not fishes. We 

 must therefore assign to the sharks the rank of the 

 "monarchs" of the fishes, or rather perhaps the 

 " tyrants," for, as these names have been applied in 

 the animal kingdom, they are perfectly synonymous; 

 and the only attribute of kingship to which they have 

 any claim is power the power of gratifying their 

 own appetites by eating up the rest. As monarchs 

 stand among men at the present day, they would of 

 course account this as a very undesirable and repul- 

 sive kind of royal endowment or dignity ; and they 

 would be right in so doing, while those who thus 

 attempted to narrow them and rob them of the very 

 jewels of their diadems, even in words, would be very 

 wrong and very wicked ; but still the kings of beasts 

 and of birds, which have worn their honours from 

 times very remote, tell an unfavourable tale of the 

 kings of those very early times; for likeness in dis- 

 position and conduct is the only ground that we can 

 see or imagine for applying the name to the animal. 

 Be that as it may, these monarchs of the fish take 

 more after the birds of prey than they do after the 

 carnivorous mammalia ; for the females among them 

 are always larger and more powerful than the males. 



The deadly weapons of the shark family are not 

 confined to the teeth, formidable as these are, for 

 some of them have the snout drawn out into a toothed 

 weapon, more formidable than that of the sword- 

 fishes of the mackarel family. Indeed, it seems to 

 be the shark which is so armed, and which is some- 

 times called the " sea-sword," and not the sword-fish, 

 which is described as making its gashes upon the 

 whale. This is reconcilable both with the nature of 

 the fish and the seas in which it is found. The tail 

 of some of the sharks is also a most formidable wea- 

 pon ; and the fins and even the skin of the animal* 

 are of a cutting or wounding nature, from the hard 

 tubercles with which they are beset. They differ so 

 much in the details, however, that no general descrip- 

 tion can be so framed as to meet them all ; and they 

 are so many that a full detail of them would greatly 

 exceed our limits. 



We may mention, however, that the teeth of these 

 most active and voracious fishes are of two distinct 

 kinds, both wounding teeth, if of sufficient size for 

 the work ; but the one kind better formed for tearing 

 and laceration than the teeth of any other animals, 

 whether of the sea or the land ; and the other kind 

 more adapted for keeping their hold. The first kind 

 consist of single blades, of a sort of triangular shape, 

 standing upon, one of the three sides as a base, and 

 having the side which is directed toward the central 

 line concave, and the other one longer and conyex. 

 These two edges are thinned off for cutting, and at 

 their junction they form a sharp point. They are 

 also toothed like a saw along both their edges, the 

 points of these secondary divisions being all turned 

 in the direction of the principal point of the entire 

 teeth, and all trenchant in their edges ; so that the 

 utmost ingenuity of savage man, when he forms his 



weapons so as to tear and torture as well as kill, could 

 invent nothing more adapted for his revolting purpose 

 than this kind of tooth in the shark. And, wherever 

 the animal is furnished with this terrible weapon, it 

 is never given in vain ; for the murderous disposition 

 of the owner always corresponds. 



The other kind of teeth consist of one principal 

 blade, formed something like the point of a broad 

 arrow, but curving outwards towards each side at the 

 base, and having a small trenchant tubercle on each. 

 The teeth of this latter form are curved backwards 

 toward the opening of the gullet. 



Neither kind are rooted in the bones, and the cut- 

 ting teeth especially are supplied with muscles, so 

 that each tooth has various motions independently 

 of the others, or the whole may move in concert ac- 

 cording to circumstances. One can indeed imagine 

 nothing more terrible than those teeth, when they 

 are mustered row upon row, to the number of six 

 rows, all at work upon the victim, and plied by the 

 strength of a most active animal, from thirty to thirty- 

 five feet in length, and weighing nearly three quarters 

 of a ton. 



Yet terrible as these teeth are, and well as they 

 are fitted for inflicting the most fearful lacerations, 

 they and the animal that is furnished with them are 

 true to the general character of the class they are 

 still the teeth of a fish ; and their grand action is 

 prehension and swallowing, not killing and dividing 

 their prey. As is the case in fishes generally (though 

 not quite universally), the stomach of the shark is 

 fitted for performing the whole work of assimilation 

 without any preparation of the food by the mouth. 

 If it can be obtained without a struggle, the largest 

 prey that the shark can swallow, and its gape is no 

 stinted one, goes to the stomach entire. Large fishes, 

 seals, the bodies of various animals of considerable 

 size, human bodies an entire one and part of ano- 

 ther, nay, even the body of a horse (so say the re- 

 ports), have all been found entire in the maw of the 

 most formidable of the shark family. 



The whole are not indeed of this very terrible cha- 

 racter ; but the greater part are, and the peaceable 

 ones are comparatively few, though many have the 

 teeth small, and the majority have them not of the 

 lacerating character. We must therefore take one 

 brief survey of them in the order of the arrangement. 

 In this we shall follow Cuvier, who makes four sec- 

 tions or principal genera sharks, hammer-heads, 

 angel-fishes, and saw-fishes. The ray follows as a 

 filth, and completes the family of the Selacii, but 

 we have already noticed it in the article above re- 

 ferred to. 



The last then of the four now mentioned contain 

 only a single genus each ; but the sharks, or family 

 of the Squalidce, consist of twelve subgenera, Scyllium, 

 Carcharins, Lamna, Gallus, Mastelus, Notidanus, 

 Selachus, Centracionus, Spinax, Centrina, and Scymnus* 

 Many of them, however, are very little known ; and 

 they are so many that we can only notice such as are 

 found in the British seas, or are otherwise of very 

 great interest. 



SCYLLIUM. The members of this genus are gene- 

 rally called " dog " fishes on the British coasts ; and 

 indeed there is a great disposition to name the whole 

 of the family that occur with us to common observers 

 after some one or other of the varieties or species of 

 the canine race. The characters of the genus Scyl- 

 lium are : the head short, the muzzle blunt, the DOS- 



