THE '' OCEAN-PIRATE." 305 



It is found in every sea, except in the icy waters of the 

 Pole. It undertakes the pursuit of a ship, and continues 

 it with unfailing perseverance, waiting and watching 

 until, perchance, some unfortunate mariner falls over- 

 board, or some dead body is consigned to the deep ; wait- 

 ing and watching with a patience which makes it the sea- 

 man's horror and specially faithful, it has been remarked, 

 to its self-imposed mission during the fury of a storm, for 

 its instinct, perhaps, leads it to count upon the wreck of the 

 labouring vessel. Even the tumult of a sea-fight has no 

 terror for it : alas, it knows that in the hour of battle 

 man is working for the shark ! 



That ocean-pirate, as Badham expressively calls it, 

 whose atrocities, though perpetrated, are . not written, in 

 water, and which, " overwhelmed with cruelty," yet 

 " comes to no misfortune like other fish ; " whose eyes 

 swell with fatness, and which does even as it lusts ; rag- 

 ing horribly everywhere like a wild beast ! 



From the writings of the ancients, we know that it was re- 

 garded by them with at least as much dread and abhorrence 

 as it is by ourselves. At first, when natural history was an 

 undeveloped science, the different species were not gener- 

 ally distinguished ; but as the knowledge of men broadened, 

 and their research extended to the inhabitants of the waters, 

 it was shown beyond all doubt that, though they agreed 

 in voracity and destructiveness, they differed in structural 

 character. There is a curious passage in Pliny, descrip- 

 tive of a species which would seem to be identical with 

 the " tope " of the English, the Squalus milandra of the 

 French, and the Samiola of the Italians. It abounds in 

 the Mediterranean as well as in the Indian Seas, and in 

 both regions is much dreaded by seamen, and bathers, 



