220 GCN, HOD, AXD SAEDLE. 



STEAjSTGE fish in CALAIf 

 MAINE. 



The strange fish lately caught on the coast of the 

 State of Maine, and dubbed the shark dog-fish by 

 some of the learned in those regions, I have little 

 doubt, from the description given in American peri- 

 odicals ^s the basking-shark, for these reasons, that 

 the basking-shark has been found on the Newfound- 

 land banks not far from that neighborhood, that the 

 basking-shark is the only proper fish with wdiich we 

 are acquainted that grows to this gigantic size, 

 thirty-three feet long ; that it could not belong to the 

 wliale family, or the inhabitants of that section of the 

 coast, from their long experience and connection 

 with the whale fisheries, Avould have known it, and 

 given it eitlier its proper name or a local one recog- 

 nizable ; and that from its being so excessively like 

 an ordinary white or blue shark, with wliich the 

 American coast abounds. To make the name more 

 telling or characteristic it is christened with a Chris- 



