308 Canadian Record of Science. 



ologists as a fish rarely straying to the British shores. Its 

 natural home is doubtless in the colder waters of the Arctic 

 Circle, where it is said to occur in considerable abundance ; 

 but when its occurrence is compared with that of the more 

 truly British sharks, it would appear to be at least as com- 

 mon in our waters as any other. Since 1803 there are re- 

 cords of i + s capture which go to prove that scarcely a year 

 passes without one or more specimens being obtained, and 

 it is worthy of note that nearly all these specimens were 

 captured on the East Coast. The most southerly point 

 from which this shark is recorded is the Seine, where one 

 was taken in 1832. Three were caught off the Bell Rock 

 in 1873, and two at Scarborough in 1878. Three specimens 

 are recorded from Aberdeen, and two from the Dogger 

 Bank, besides a number of single ones from different parts 

 of the coast. 



" The two which I dissected were caught, within a few 

 days of each other, in January of this year. The first was 

 a fine specimen 11 feet long, which was brought up by one 

 of the trawlers of the General Steam Fishing Company 8 

 miles S.E. of the Hay Island. When it was slung up clear 

 of the water, a cod and three baited hooks with snoods 

 attached fell out of its mouth, and I afterwards found a large 

 cod hook fixed in the gullet. Its stomach contained one 

 herring, five cod, one conger eel, and a considerable quan- 

 tity of partly digested fish. 



" The second shark was only 5 feet long, and was caught 

 by line fishermen. The stomach of this one contained 

 three herrings and about a score of cuttle fish beaks." 



The figure (Plate IV.) is an accurate outline of the spe- 

 cimen now in the Peter Redpath Museum. 



Eaiaerinacea, Mitchell. 



Along with the shark above described, I obtained a 



specimen of a ray, or skate, which appears to be the species 



above named. Mitchell's species is referred by Gunther to 



R. eglanteria of Lacepede. My specimen is, however, so 



