204 THE OCEAN. 



moment to seize prey : and as they are so planted in 

 the jaw that each tooth is capable of independent 

 motion, being furnished with its own muscles, and as 

 the power of the jaws is enormous, they form one of 

 the most terrific and formidable apparatus existing 

 for the supply of carnivorous appetite. The fatal 

 voracity of this animal is well known : instances are 

 numerous of swimmers in tropical seas having been 

 severed in twain at one snap, or deprived of limbs, 

 while, on more than one occasion, the whole body of 

 a man has been taken from this living sepulchre. 

 Yet this sanguinary voracity is but the result of an 

 unerring instinct implanted in the animal by God, 

 without the exercise of which its life could not be 

 sustained: and therefore it seems not only foolish, but 

 even sinful, to entertain feelings of personal revenge 

 against it, as if it were endowed with human reason, 

 " knowing good and evil." I do not know that it is 

 wrong to kill an animal so destructive and dan- 

 gerous ; I reprobate only the imputation to it of 

 human motives, and the staining a useful act with 

 unnecessary cruelty. 



The mode by which the race of these formidable 

 creatures is continued, differing as it does so greatly 

 from that of most other fishes, is exceedingly curious. 

 The Shark, instead of depositing some millions of 

 eggs in a season, like the Cod or the Herring, pro- 

 duces two egg^, of a square or oblong form, the coat 

 of which is composed of a tough horny substance ; 

 each corner is prolonged into a tendril, of which the 

 two which are next the tail of the enclosed fish are 

 stronger and more prehensile than the other pair. 



