SPITZnF.UGEX AND GREENLAND, 103 



rower ; they stand directly iindcrneath the uppermost fmns 

 -tf the back. The tail is like unto a piece of board whereon 

 the dyers widen or stretch their stockins, which is pointed 

 lichiud and underneath : the tail is not divided, etc. To- 

 wards the undermost finn of the back the tail is thinner. 

 Tlie other shape from the top to the tail is like a man's naked 

 arm ; the nostrils are oblong ; the eyes stand high out of his 

 head : their mouths are just directly underneath the eyes ; 

 they are in bigness from two to twenty foot. 



These saw or stoord-jisli are great enemies to the lohale 

 a.ndjinji-^sh. ]\Iany of them gather about him, and they do 

 not leave the ichalc until they have killed him ; then they 

 eat of him only the tongue, all the rest they leave behind 

 them, as doth appear by the w^hales that are killed by the 

 sword-fish. I saw myself, in our home-voyage or return, a 

 fight between a xchale and a sicord-fsh, where both of them 

 made a great bustle, beating and jumping about ; and I 

 understood that in calm weather the seamen let them alone 

 until the whale be killed, where they take him without any 

 trouble. But if they set out their long boats after the ivhale, 

 they frighten the sword Jish, and so the ivhale escapes. 



8. Of the Hay.i 



There are several sorts of them : they have two finns on 

 their backs, the highest whereof is like to the uppermost of 

 the hutshojjf, but the lowermost is of an equal breadth at the 

 top and bottom, but it is hollowed out like a sickle : he hath 

 six finns underneath his belly, whereof the foremost two are 

 the longest and shaped like a tongue, but the t"wo middle- 

 most are somewhat broader than those towards the tail, and 

 of the same shape ; the two last, underneath by the tail, are 



^ Shark : the species most abundant in the Arctic regions seems to be 

 the Dalatias borealis or Northern Shark. What Scoresby figures as an 

 appendage of the eye, is a parasitic crustacean of the family Lerneidae. 



