SHARKS. 



267 



The "WTlite Shark (Squalus Carcharias}, which attains twenty-five or thirty feet 

 in length, and is celebrated for its ferocity. Its vast mouth is furnished with triangular 

 moveable teeth, the number of which increases with age. In the young there is but a 

 single row, in the adult six. The strength of this fish is very great, and its motions 

 rapid ; its voracity knows no bounds ; hence it is amongst the most dangerous of ani- 

 mals. Men frequently become its victims, and as many as eight or ten tunnies have 

 been found at once in its stomach. Seals, tunnies, and cod-fish are the ordinary food 

 of sharks, but they attack dead bodies, and even devour each other. 



FIG. 288. GREENLAND SHARK. 



The shark, indeed, is omnivorous ; he will swallow anything, from tin pots and canvas 

 to fat pork and anchovies. In the stomach of one taken in the harbour at Sydney were 

 found half a ham, several legs of mutton, the hind quarter of a pig, the head and fore 

 legs of a bull-dog, with a rope round its neck, a quantity of horseflesh, a piece of sack- 

 ing, and a ship's scraper. This catalogue would form an interesting fact for a work on 

 "Digestion and its Derangements/' From the liver of this fish twelve gallons of oil 

 were obtained. DR. BENNETT. 



The Greenland Shark (Lccmargus borealis} is a large animal, twelve or fourteen 

 feet in length or more, and six or eight in circumference. It is harmless to man, but 

 an enemy to whales, biting and tearing these superior monsters when alive, and eating 



