112 HABITS AND INSTINCTS OP ANIMALS. CHAP. IV. 



dart through the water. The speed of the white shark 

 (Squalus Carcharias) is said to be so great, that nothing 

 can hope to escape it by flight. There is an interesting 

 and well-executed print commemorating the following 

 anecdote of the latter : <e Sir Brooke Watson, when in 

 the West Indies, as a youth, was swimming at a little 

 distance from a ship, when he saw a shark making 

 towards him. Struck with terror at its approach, he im- 

 mediately cried out for assistance. A rope was instantly 

 thrown ; and even while the men were in the act of 

 drawing him up the ship's side, the monster darted 

 after him, and, at a single snap, took off his leg." 

 This story has been generally told in proof of the 

 rapidity of swimming possessed by the sharks in gene- 

 ral ; but it merely establishes the fact, which no one 

 would think of questioning, that a shark can swim 

 faster than a man. We have, in the Ichthyological 

 volumes of this series, already said so much on the 

 swimming of fish, that it is unnecessary to treat the 

 subject at much length in this place. It may be ob- 

 served, however, as a general law, that the most rapid 

 swimmers are such as have the pectoral fins either very 

 large, or sickle-shaped : the former may be compared to 

 such birds as fly very rapidly, but for a short distance. 

 Of this description are the different kinds of skates 

 and thornbacks, as well as the whale family of rays 

 (RaidcK) ; which, although they remove from place to 

 place, or dart upon their prey, with the velocity of a 

 meteor, nevertheless watch for its approach, on the 

 bottom of the sea, in a state of quiescence. The Scom- 

 beridte, or mackerel, which family includes the tunny, 

 bonito, and those large fishes so often met with round 

 vessels in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, have the 



pectoral fins more or less falcate (Jig. 30.), as is the 



