PICKED DOG-FISH. 401 



Being gregarious, they frequently make their appearance in 

 such shoals that the fishermen load their boats to the water's 

 edge with them ; and, according to Mr. Low, they prove a 

 valuable capture. The flesh is dried and eaten : the livers 

 yield a large quantity of oil, while their intestines and other 

 refuse parts are strewed over, the land as manure. Dr. Neill 

 says this species is very common in the Forth during the 

 Herring season, where numbers are caught ; but their flesh is 

 not eaten in that neighbourhood. 



The Picked Dog-fish is found in numbers at most of the 

 fishing stations along the east coast, round to Kent and Sus- 

 sex on the south coast, where it is almost universally called 

 the Bone Dog. According to Montagu's MS. it is very 

 numerous in Devonshire and in Cornwall : Mr. Couch says, 

 " It is the most abundant of the Sharks, and is sometimes 

 found in incalculable numbers, to the no small annoyance of 

 the fishermen, whose hooks they cut from the lines in rapid 

 succession. I have heard of twenty thousand taken in a scan 

 at one time ; and such is the strength of instinct, that little 

 creatures not exceeding six inches in length may be found, in 

 company with the larger and stronger, following schulls of 

 fish, on which at that time it is impossible they should be 

 able to prey. The Picked Dog bends itself into the form 

 of a bow for the purpose of using its spines, and by a sudden 

 motion causes them to spring asunder in opposite directions; 

 and so accurately is this intention effected, that if a finger be 

 placed on its head, it will strike it without piercing its own 

 skin. This fish is subject, like many others, to occasional 

 monstrosity. A friend of mine was in possession of a Pick- 

 ed Dog-fish with two heads, the separation continuing so far 

 back as behind the pectoral fins. The fisherman who found 

 it informed me that there was only one egg attached to it, 

 and that it must have been dropped from the mother after 



