138 BASKING SHARK. Class IV. 



upper lobe of the tail, five feet; the lower, 

 three.* 



They will permit a boat to follow them, 

 without accelerating their motion, till it comes 

 almost within contact ; when a harpooner strikes 

 his weapon into them, as near to the gills as 

 possible ; but they are often so insensible, as 

 not to move till the united strength of two men 

 have forced in the harpoon deeper. As soon as 

 they perceive themselves wounded, they fling up 

 their tail, plunge headlong to the bottom, and 

 frequently coil the rope round them in their 

 agonies; attempting to disengage the harpoon 

 from them by rolling on the ground, for it is 

 often found greatly bent. As soon as they 

 discover that their efforts are in vain, they swim 

 away with amazing rapidity, and with such 

 violence, that there has been an instance of a 

 vessel of seventy tons having been towed away 

 against a fresh gale. They sometimes run off 

 with two hundred fathoms of line, and with two 

 harpoons in them, and will employ the fishers 



* A Basking Shark taken near Ablotshury in Dorsetshire in 

 1801, and exhibited in London, was about twenty-eight feet in 

 length, and the extent of the tail, from point to point, eight feet. 

 Its teeth were numerous, amounting, according to the report q( 

 the proprietor, to four thousand. 



