Class IV. BASKING SHARK. 135 



of the water ; and for the same reason we have 

 taken the liberty of calling it the Basking shark. 

 It was long taken for a species of whale, till we 

 pointed out the branchial orifices on the sides, 

 and the perpendicular site of the tail. 



These fish are migratory, or at lest it is but 

 in a certain number of years that they are seen 

 in multitudes on the Welsh seas, though in most 

 summers a single and perhaps strayed fish 

 appears. They inhabit the northern seas, even 

 as high as the arctic circle. They visited the 

 bays of Caernarvonshire and Anglesey in vast 

 shoals, in the summers of 1756,* and a few 

 succeeding years, continuing there only the hot 

 months, for they quitted the coast about Mi- 

 chaelmas, as if cold weather was disagreeable 

 to them. They appear in the Firth of Clyde ; 

 and among the Hebrides in the month of June, 

 in small droves of seven or eight ; but oftener 

 in pairs, and continue in those seas, till the latter 

 end of July, when they disappear. 



They seem to have nothing of the fierce and 

 voracious nature of the shark kind, and are 

 often so tame as to suffer themselves to be 

 stroked : they generally lay motionless on the 

 surface, commonly on their bellies, but some- 



* Some old people say they recollect the same sort of fish visit- 

 ing these seas in vast numbers about forty years ago. 



