65'2 



SHARK. 



While Shark (C. vulgaris). The body is long, co- 

 vered with a hard tuberculated skin, of a brownish-ash 

 colour on the upper part, and whitish below. The head 

 is large, the muzzle not very long, and depressed, arid 

 pierced with numerous pores. The toneue is short 

 and rough. The upper jaw furnished with six rows 

 of triangular teeth, with both their trenchant edges 

 nearly straight and toothed ; and the under jaw with 

 four rows, sharper in the points than the others, but not 

 so thin, and therefore not so trenchant. The pecto- 

 ral fins very large, and the first dorsal elevated, with 

 the ends of all the three broader than their bases, 

 and squared over, or slightly concave. The ventrals 

 small ; and the second dorsal and anal, which are 

 opposite to each other, not very large ; but all the 

 four of similar shape and termination as the larger 

 body fins. The caudal fin forked, with two powerful 

 and widely divergent lobes, the upper one larger 

 than the under. The irides with a pearly lustre. 

 This is the description of the fish as it appears in the 

 Mediterranean, and therefore that in which it is most 

 likely to appear, if it should stray to the shores of the 

 British seas. As a probability, if not a proof, that the 

 descriptions of it as a reputed British fish, have been 

 mixed up with that of some other species, probably 

 the Porbeagle (JLamna Cornubica), we may mention 

 that there are inserted the words, " pectorals tri- 

 angular," " first dorsal rounded," which are true of 

 the porbeagle, but not of the white shark. 



White Shark. 



In the tropical seas the white shark attains the length 

 of thirty or thirty-five feet ; and the mouth of one of 

 this size is a fearful chasm. It is deeply cleft, and 

 the opening is made almost to a circular aperture 

 between three and four feet in diameter. This will 

 account for the large animals that have been found 

 entire in the maw of this monster of the deep. The 

 French call this species Rcquin, which is usually said 

 to allude to the vast number of victims which the 

 jaws of the shark send to their final " rest, " or pre- 

 pare for their " requiem," or song of last repose. 

 Whatever of truth there may be in this, the shark is 

 terrible upon the sea ; and scenes of death and de- 

 struction are said to be those in which it is most in 

 its element. We question the accuracy of those 

 statements which impute to the shark the power of 

 " scenting the battle from afar," or even what is said 

 of its smelling putrid substances when miles off; but 

 it is very generally stated by nautical men who have 

 been, engaged iu the warm seas, that the shark en- 



joys the scene of carnage ; and that unscared by all 

 the terrorsof the battle, it adds a new terror of its own, 

 more revolting, if possible, than any of those perpetrated 

 by man. The sharks career about from vessel to 

 vessel, swallowing or mangling the bodies of the 

 fallen, the dying and the dead all, in short, who by 

 accident get into the water; and adding its share to 

 the spilt blood with which the surface of the sea is 

 clouded. 



When the slave trade was carried on with all the 

 horrors of " the middle passage," at which, even in 

 the recollection, our blood runs cold at the present 

 time, it afforded a formidable stock on which to graft 

 all the horrors of the accompaniment of the shark. 

 There was, of course, enough, and more than enough 

 of the horrible in the abominations of the trade itself, 

 without this addition ; and as the sharks are career- 

 ing about the tropical seas in all directions, there was 

 every probability that the poor unfortunates who had 

 expired in the "gross intolerable airof thefloating en- 

 gines of wholesale murder," were swallowed by the 

 sharks the moment they were cast into the sea, yet it 

 by no means follows from this that the sharks had any 

 means of distinguishing between a slave ship and any 

 other ship whose keel might divide the waters of their 

 seas ; but there is little doubt that the sharks, in com- 

 mon with all the other races of discursive fishes which 

 roam the broad waters, would follow that from w hich 

 they had been once fed, in the expectation of being 

 fed again ; and thus a very little addition of romance 

 would suffice to bear out all that was alleged of 

 them. 



It would be foreign to our purpose, however, to 

 enter into the details of the history of the white 

 shark, whether romantic or real. They are to be 

 found in the narrations of the voyagers ; and all that 

 we need to add is, that the powers of this shark, and 

 the propensity which it has to put those powers into 

 operation, are quite equal to all that has been al- 

 leged of it ; and thus, all who have a thirst for 

 believing which is not absolutely insatiable, may find 

 ample scope for it within the limits of the real history 

 of these animals. There is but too much reason to 

 believe that legs have been lopped off, bodies cut in 

 twain, and members swallowed entire by these fishes ; 

 and some of the most melancholy instances have been 

 those in which the commander of a vessel, in proba- 

 bly an overstretch of that kind of authority which 

 such have on the high seas and we readily admit 

 that they need a good deal, and no little promptitude 

 and decision in the exercise of it have made immer- 

 sion in the sea at the end of a rope the punish- 

 ment, and have drawn up half a human body instead 

 of the whole. 



The teeth of the shark are well calculated for per- 

 forming all the feats that have been recorded of it. 

 We have already mentioned their arrangement, and 

 we shall now notice their size. In the largest sharks 

 that have been examined, that is, in those about 

 thirty-five feet long, the teeth stand fully two inches 

 clear of the jaw, and the base is nearly of the same 

 extent. They are serrated in the edges, slightly concave 

 toward the mesial line, exceedingly hard and white, 

 and having their principal individual motion toward 

 the mesial plane, though they cut and tear in their 

 motion both ways. In the young fishes there is only 

 one row, and the teeth composing it are partially in- 

 clined toward the throat ; but they increase with age 

 till the adult number of six above and four below has 



