188 THE OCEAN. 



very large Shaiks, the teeth have been found nearly 

 two inches in breadth ; they are placed in rows, 

 sometimes to the number of six, one within another, 

 lying nearly flat when not in use, but erected in a 

 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 jaw 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 unerr- 

 ing 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, " know- 

 incr fjood and evil." I do not know that it is wrong 

 to kill an animal so destructive and dangerous ; I 

 reprobate only the imputation to it of human motives, 

 and the staining an useful act with unnecessary cruelty. 

 The mode by which the race of these formidalile 

 creatures is continued, differing as it does so greatly 

 from that of m.ost 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 eggs, of a square or oblong form, the coat 

 of which is composed of a tough horny substance; 



