68 THE LIVING ANIMALS OF THE WORLD 
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SHARK (of which a photograph, taken at Mevagissey, is given below), illustrates in its harmless 
person the fallacy of condemning all sharks as man-eaters, since in this, the largest of its 
race, we have an absolutely innocuous fish. From its habit of lying at the surface with the 
large back-fin erect, it is also known as the Sail-fish, while the equally appropriate name of 
Sun-fish sometimes causes confusion with other British fishes properly so called. 
A commoner British shark is the BLUE SHARK, smali examples of which, weighing 30 
or 40 lbs., the writer has often killed with the rod at Mevagissey. When thus hooked, this 
fish has a curious and very trying habit of revolving rapidly in the water, scoring its own 
granulated skin with the line. The PORBEAGLE-SHARK, another Cornish species, is of thicker 
build than the last, and swims with far less graceful movements. It is a deep brown colour 
above, and its general outline may be likened to that of a torpedo. The FOX-SHARK, or 
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BASKING-SHARK . 
Regularly hunted on the west coast of Ireland for the sake of the oil obtainable from its liver. Note the keel by the side of the tail 
THRESHER, so often seen on hot summer days leaping out of water among the pilchard-shoals, 
is easily recognised, even at considerable distances, by the disproportionately long upper lobe 
of the tail-fin. This is the shark which attacks certain of the Whale Tribe. Many who 
stay at home find it agreeable to cast doubt on the story; but the writer has, in Australian 
seas, witnessed the sight of two of these sharks flinging themselves on the back of an 
apparently exhausted whale in such unmistakable circumstances that the only alternative 
(which the reader may accept, if preferred) is to suppose that they were all congenial 
playmates. 
Before specifying some general characters of this interesting group of predatory fishes, it 
may be as well briefly to summarise the BRITISH DOG-FISHES; for the HAMMERHEAD-SHARK, 
very common in southern seas, is so rare a visitor to Britain as to be negligible in an 
epitome of the group. The dog-fishes, then, which trouble fishermen are the SMoorTH Hounp 
