86 BOTTLE-HEAD HYPEROODON. Cl. IV. 



toral fins were seventeen inches long ; the back 

 fin was placed rather nearer the tail than the 

 head, and was a foot long ; the breadth of the 

 tail was three feet two inches. 



These fish sometimes grow to the length of 

 twenty feet ; they make but little noise in blow- 

 ing, are very tame, come very near the ships, 

 and will accompany them for a great way. 



[A fish, which we presume to be of this spe- 

 cies, was found on the recess of the tide in the 

 new cut of the river Dee, below Chester, in 

 October 1785; its length was twenty-four feet, 

 but the girth did not exceed twelve feet. In 

 the periodical papers of the time it is described 

 as having no teeth but a vast quantity of small 

 irregular sharp protuberances in the orifice of 

 the throat, and ten strong hard protuberant bones 

 placed horizontally in the upper and under jaw; 

 the eyes were of the size of those of an ox and 

 situated near the mouth ; the nose was hard 

 and prominent ; the body covered with a thin 

 skin. 



Two others, probably a dam and its cub, 

 were left on the sands below Aber in Caer- 

 narvonshire, on the recess of the tide, in the 

 year 1799. One was about twenty-seven feet 

 in length, the other eighteen; the extent of 

 the tail of the larger was six feet. In the 



