254 FISHES I HAVE KNOWN 



then another and another, while solid shots plunged 

 into the water near a floating target. We were in 

 the line of fire ; a shell flew shrieking close to us, 

 and another prematurely burst over our heads. 



The firing party must have failed to notice our 

 small craft. To say we were not scared would be 

 affectation, and we rowed for our lives, expecting 

 every moment that a fragment of shell would send 

 us to the bottom. Not until we were well under 

 shelter of Pendennis Point did we breathe freely, 

 for the sensation of being under fire is not an 

 agreeable one. 



At Penzance I chanced to arrive just after a 

 shark (the real article) had been caught in the bay 

 (vide the illustration) with an ordinary pollack line. 

 It was fifteen feet long, but thin and evidently out 

 of condition, and unable to make a good fight for 

 liberty ; otherwise the slender tackle could not 

 have held it. 



A monstrous, but harmless, basking shark had 

 also been caught, surpassing in size both the one 

 found at Falmouth, thirty-one feet long, and the 

 one stranded in 1901 in Ballinskellig's Bay, County 

 Kerry, thirty feet long, and eighteen feet in girth. 

 Looking at the gape of this shark, one is inclined 

 to think it was the fish especially " prepared" by 

 the Almighty to swallow Jonah, it being a fact 



