FISHING-FROG. StUftGEOK. 24? 



dentally falling overboard, or imprudently exposing them- 

 selves to their attacks. 



The shark seems to prefer human flesh to any other, 

 but nothing comes amiss to it ; and it frequently becomes 

 the victim of its own rapacity, from swallowing hooks 

 baited with flesh, which have been let down to entrap it. 



The flesh of the shark is scarcely digestible but by the 

 strongest stomachs : nevertheless it is eaten by the ne- 

 groes ; and that of one species, the dog-fish, is used by 

 the poor on some of our own coasts. The principal 

 species are the angel, the long-tailed, the spotted, the 

 smooth, the Beaumaris, the basking, the white, the blue, 

 and the picked-dog or hound-fish. The basking-shark has 

 been known to measure upwards of twelve yards in 

 length. 



THE FISHING-FROG, OR SEA-DEVIL. 



The head of this disgusting animal is equal in size to 

 all the rest of the body. It is sometimes seen four or five 

 feet long ; and Mr. Pennant mentions one taken near 

 Scarborough, the mouth of which was a yard wide. To 

 increase its deformity, the under jaw is much longer 

 than the upper ; and immediately above the nose are two 

 long tough filaments, and on the back three others, which 

 seem like lines hung out to attract fishes. The body 

 grows slender towards the tail. The colour of the upper 

 part of the body is dusky, the lower part is white, and 

 the skin smooth. 



The fishermen entertain a sort of veneration for this 

 ugly fish ; conceiving it to be hostile to the dog-fish, from 

 the body of that fierce and voracious creature being fre- 

 quently found in its stomach : on this account, when they 

 catch the fishing-frog, they generally restore it alive to 

 its native element. 



THE STURGEON. 



This fish sometimes grows to the prodigious length of 

 eighteen feet, and the weight of five hundred pounds. 

 M 4 



