104 The Zoologist — Febkuary, 1866. 



floating fish. It was a long squat creature, reminding one of the 

 monk, the angel fish and other bottom- feeders. Its fins, which were 

 all well forward or well aft, very stout and thick, and very small in 

 proportion to its length, seemed to imply a fish with powers of 

 creeping along the bottom and of turning rapidly, by the aid of its 

 powerful dorsal, anal and caudal fins, rather than a fish which could 

 swim rapidly. Its spiracles on both sides were unfortunately destroyed 

 by the gaff in effecting its capture : I could only, therefore, note that 

 they were in the place proper for them in this description of shark. 



In colour the fish was, above, of a dull leaden hue, the ridge of the 

 back, the head and fins being darkest, and the extreme top of the 

 snout rounding off flesh-coloured ; and below, of a dirty white. I saw 

 on it no other colours than these. 



Its skin was perfectly free from scales, and was (or at least rapidly 

 after death became— 1 cannot certainly affirm which) slimy. It was 

 covered all over (except on the very belly itself) with very numerous 

 small spines, precisely of the sort described by Yarrell, none exceeding 

 the third of an inch in length, and all very sharp, the larger ones 

 curved and the smaller ones straight, or not yet developed into a curve 

 perhaps: they were distributed without any apparent arrangement 

 whatever, and became fewer and smaller over the head until those on 

 the snout were rudimentary merely : they were present on the fins, 

 but were small there. A very large number of small ones were con- 

 gregated on a curious callous, mobile and based in the skin, about the 

 size of a crown piece, which existed about half-way between the pec- 

 torals and first dorsal and half-way between the ridge of the back and 

 the lateral line, but as 1 found nothing corresponding to this on the 

 other side I suppose it to be merely the callous of an old wound. 

 The spines were all based in the skin itself, and were exceedingly 

 mobile. The whole skin, and indeed the whole fish, was, to the 

 touch, of the loosest, flabbiest nature, and portions of the fish which 

 were raised and dropped always lay as they fell, just as is the case 

 with the monk and angler. It reminded me, as I have said, strongly 

 of these ground-feeders, and had anything but the tight tubby 

 appearance given to it in recent descriptions. It was a long, low- 

 lying, flabby fish. 



Its snout was broad, flat and rounded, and, so to speak, overhung 

 its mouth, which, when closed, was, owing to the projectile character 

 of the upper jaw, less overhung by the upper jaw than is usual in 

 sharks. 



