10 Sheppard: Note on a Large Basking Shark at Redcar. 
internal colour visible when the caput was slightly moved one 
Way or another. 
In reference to the supposed internal movement of the eyes 
at the will of the spider, | may perhaps refer to a published 
observation of my own at p. 538 of ‘Spiders of Dorset,’ 1881. 
This is to the same effect as the remarks I have made above, 
but I had for the moment forgotten it. 
a 
NOTE ON A LARGE BASKING SHARK AT REDCAR. 
(PLATE III.) 
T. SHEPPARD, F.G.S. 
Hull. 
Ear_y in August last an enormous shark, measuring 23 ft. ro ins. 
in length, and ‘11+ ft. across the tail,’ became entangled in 
the salmon nets at Redcar, and for a time was a great attraction 
to the visitors. It was variously described as a grampus, a 
blue shark, a basking shark, etc. Mr, T. H. Nelson, of 
Redcar, to whom we are indebted for the accompanying 
photograph (Plate III.), was absent whilst the shark was on 
view, but afterwards, in order to settle the matter, kindly 
obtained a portion of a comb-like body from the gills, and a 
piece of the skin. These were submitted to Sir William 
Turner, F.R.S., of the Edinburgh University, who has been 
good enough to examine them, and reports that they belong 
to the Basking Shark (Se/ache maxima). 
The comb-like bronchial appendages, which were so in- 
teresting a feature in the Redcar specimen, are exceedingly 
curious, and formed the subject of a paper* by Sir William 
Turner, which was printed in the /ournal of Anatomy and 
Physiology, Vol. 14, 1880, pp. 273-286. 
This comb-like structure was Suh first thought to be a variety 
of whalebone, to which material it is to some extent similar, and 
indeed the fish was referred to as a whale by the early writers. 
Sir William, however, proved that the type of the structure 
resembles the dentine of a tooth, and is not of the same nature 
as whalebone. Its purpose was probably as a sort of a filter, 
and answered the same purpose as the baleen plates in the 
mouth of a whale, consequently ‘‘ they provide us with an 
excellent example of objects which, though different in structure 
and mode of origin, yet fulfil corresponding physiological 
properties.” 
* The Structure of the Comb-like Bronchial Appendages and of the Teeth 
of the Basking Shark (Se/ache maxima). 
Naturalist, 
