FISHES—PHENOMENAL AND ECONOMICAL. 193 
and has been met with by the writer at such remote locations as Tasmania, Moreton 
Bay in Queensland, and Fremantle in Western Australia. The specimen figured on 
page 194 was taken at the last-named station. The Oyster-Crusher, Pig-fish, and. 
Bull-Dog Shark are names by which it is locally known to Australian fishermen. 
Phenomenal Sharks of the more ordinary type are by no means strangers to 
Australian waters. Examples of the Tiger Shark, Galeocerdo Rayneri, and the Blue 
Shark, Carcharias glaucus, have been authentically attested to up to twenty or twenty- 
five feet in length, and according to their measurement with relation to the boats 
alongside which these monsters have occasionally put in an appearance, may even 
attain to thirty feet. An original method of disposing of a large shark was recently 
brought before the notice of the writer. The fish, as commonly happens, was cruising 
around a steam-boat anchored in Sydney Harbour on the look out for flotsam and 
jetsam. The cook happened to have a pumpkin on the boil in the galley and, by a 
sudden inspiration, conceived the idea of throwing it to the shark. It was imme- 
diately seized and swallowed, followed by a commotion suggestive of a dynamite 
explosion. When the troubled waters sank to rest the shark lay lifeless on their 
surface! The experiment, though novel and successful in its object, was, it must be 
admitted, rather rough upon the shark. 
The Elephant-fish, or Southern Chimera, Callorhynchus antarcticus, undoubtedly 
claims a front place in the ranks of abnormal or phenomenal members of the Shark 
tribe. It has already received a brief share of attention at page 167, in conjunction 
with the reference to its effigy in Plaster of Paris, photographically reproduced in 
company with many other species in Plate XXVIII, The specimen No. 20, there 
portrayed, represented a full-grown female individual, which, after capture, deposited 
one of its singular, flattened, horny, egg cases. This structure, allowing for the 
absence of the horny tendrils at the four corners, somewhat resembles those of our 
_ British Dog-fishes, of the genus Scyllium. The edges of the case are, however, 
much more flattened and expanded, while, in order to secure the adherence of the 
organism to submarine objects, the whole under surface is coated with fine flocculent 
filaments, which are viscid and adhesive when the structure is first extruded from the 
oviduct. As shown by the replica of the egg case that was made in plaster in 
conjunction with the parent fish, its size is relatively considerable. 
The chief interest attached to this type is its near relationship, and occurrence 
as a complementary form, to Chimera monstrosa, the Chimera or Rabbit-fish, and 
other species of the same genus, of the North Temperate and Arctic seas. The male 
BB 
