X. SHARKS, DOGFISH AND SKATE 



By F. G. AFLALO 



ONLY in a populai* sense, as distinguishing between the 

 larger ocean sharks and some of the smaller kinds which 

 frequent our shores, is it correct to separate sharks 

 and dogfish, for the latter are nothing more or less than 

 small sharks. This does not imply that they would ever 

 grow into big sharks, for four or five feet is the greatest 

 length attained by some of them. They are always more or less in evidence 

 on the coasts of these islands, and at times constitute a dreaded plague 

 to the fishermen, tearing their nets, and robbing their lines, so that it 

 becomes impossible to fish at all until the shoal has moved elsewhere, 

 devouring everything in its path, like a swarm of locusts. Those who 

 regard fishing for such vermin as sport— and, as will presently be shown, 

 the tope does, at any rate, appear to give good value — ^have abundant 

 opportunities. At Filey, in Yorkshire, and on several parts of the coast 

 of Kent, notably at Heme Bay, and Essex, the tope is much sought after 

 in summer, and I understand that it is to be caught at Ghristchurch, 

 off Hengistbury Head, all the year round, specimens of thirty-six pounds 

 having been recorded there. Lord St Levan, a keen sea angler, recently 

 had exciting sport in pursuit of large sharks in Mounts Bay, within sight 

 of his castle windows, and, though his success was slight, he succeeded, 

 at any rate, in so scaring the shoals as to drive them out of the neighbour- 

 hood, which was all the fishermen wanted. These must have been large 

 game for English seas, for some of them were computed by those who 

 had a good view of them to measure as much as twenty -five feet, and 

 they were unlike any sharks with which the men of Newlyn and Mousehole 

 were previously familiar. This suggested to Lord St Levan a doubt whether 

 they might be basking sharks or the white kind, and he invited my opinion 

 on the subject. Without the opportunity of seeing one, alive or dead, this 

 could only be guesswork, but I favoured the view that they were white 

 sharks, which are closely related to the common blue kind, for they appear 

 to me to have been altogether too active in their behaviour for basking 

 sharks, sluggish giants that do not, as a rule, swim in shoals and that, 

 like whalebone whales, feed on minute marine life, and are inoffensive 

 unless molested. The late Sir H. W. Gore-Booth used to tell me many 

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