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THE SAIL FISH. 



THE SAIL-FISH, called also the Sun-Fish, and the 

 Basking- Shark, (sgualus maximus,) is not often met 

 with on the east coast of this country, though it be a 

 pretty regular summer visitant on the west. It is 

 about thirty feet long, and has two fins on the back, 

 the one on the middle and the other near the tail. The 

 former is commonly above water, and, from that cir- 

 cumstance, with the shape and size of the fin, the fish 

 has its common name. The fin is dark, and the upper 

 part of the fish of a bluish colour, but the under part 

 is white. The skin feels smooth when the hand is 

 passed over it from the head toward the tail, but rough 

 and uneven when passed in an opposite direction. It 

 is a heavy-looking fish, and not easily alarmed by the 

 approach of boats ; but the story commonly told of its 

 waiting till the harpoon is pushed a second time into it, 

 is not true ; as it usually plunges the moment that it is 

 struck. The liver contains a great quantity of oil. This 

 fish usually makes its appearance on the west coast in 

 May, and leaves it again about the end of July. 



The division of fishes to which the sail-fish belongs, 

 though numerous and diversified, and containing some 

 of the most singular inhabitants of the ocean, yet all 

 agree in certain parts of their structure. They all differ 

 from the osseous fishes, or fishes with fibrous bones (of 

 which some slight notice has already been taken) in the 

 structure of their skeletons, in the nature of their in- 

 tegument or covering, and in the mode of their pro- 

 duction. The division has this farther advantage, that 



