CHAPTER XX 



THE DOGFISH 



Various species of the small sharks known as Dogfish are 

 found in British waters. One of the commonest 

 of them is the Lesser Spotted Dogfish or Rough 

 Hound, Scyllium canicula. Like other dogfish, it justifies 

 its name by travelling in packs and hunting by smell. It 

 lives usually near the sea bottom, and feeds largely upon 

 crabs, hermit crabs, and other crustaceans, though it also 

 often devours shell-fish, or small fishes, and will indeed 

 take most kinds of animal food. It is very voracious and 

 is a nuisance to fishermen by taking the bait meant for its 

 betters. Its flesh is not unfit for food, though coarse, but 

 it is not eaten to any great extent. 



The length of a well-grown rough hound is about two 

 feet. Its slender, sinister-looking body tapers 

 Features. fr° m before backwards, and, though it shows 

 no sudden differences in size, there may be 

 recognised in it a head, trunk, and tail, the hinder limit of 

 the former being marked roughly by an opening behind 

 the eye known as the spiracle, and that of the trunk by the 

 vent. The head is fiat, and has a blunt-pointed snout, a 

 wide, crescentic mouth on the lower side, a pair of round 

 nostrils in front of the mouth and connected with it by 

 oronasal grooves, and at the sides two slit-like eyes. Im- 

 mediately behind each eye is a small, round opening, the 

 spiracle, while farther back and more towards the ventral 

 side is a row of slits which are the gill slits or gill clefts. The 

 spiracle and the gill clefts open internally into the pharynx. 

 Behind the head the body gradually changes its shape, 

 becoming flattened from side to side instead of from above 



