SPIXACID^. 321 



Internally there are six rows, consequently nine in all, while the number of teeth 

 in each row is about 50, or about 450 teeth. Fins — first dorsal fin small and 

 situated nearly midway between the end of the snout and the base of the caudal 

 fin, and some distance in front of the ventral ; second dorsal smaller than the 

 first ; it commences above the hind edge of the ventral. Pectoral and ventral 

 small ; caudal but little developed. 8kin — the scutes end in curved spines, having 

 a star-shaped base, which gives the fish a very rough feel when the hand is passed 

 from- behind forwards. Colours — when first captured of a slp-ty-gray, darkest on 

 the back, becoming lighter on the sides and beneath. Scattered white dots have 

 been observed dispersed over the sides, and to be most characteristic of the young 

 fish (as in large ones they appear to be absent), which are brown along the back, 

 shading to gray or blue on the sides, but which soon fade to gray.* 



Names. — Greenland sharJc, due to the locality where it was first observed. 



Habits. — Of the habits of this shark in our own seas we know but little, but it 

 would seem to be sluggish, judging from the size of its fins, while it appears to be 

 a determined foe to the whale in the Arctic Ocean. For, as observed by Captain 

 Seoresby (Arctic Regions), it bites and annoys it while living, and feeds on it when 

 dead. It scoops hemispherical pieces out of its body nearly as big as a person's 

 head, and continues scooping and gorging lump after lump, until the whole cavity 

 of its belly is filled. It is so insensible to pain, that though it has been run 

 through the body with a knife and escaped, yet after awhile he has seen it return 

 to banquet again on the whale at the very spot where it received its wounds. In 

 no instance had he ever heard of these sharks attacking human beings. When a 

 whale is being cut up in the northern seas these sharks soon assemble around the 

 vessel to eat the flesh. They are said to attack any carcases that come in their 

 way. Mr. Brotherston, in an interesting paper upon one of these fish captured 

 olf Berwick, observes that in its stomach were a lump-sucker, Gyclopierus luw,pus, 

 in a partially digested state, which had been disgorged during transit, and the 

 bones of several other fish, one of them about two feet in length. Elsewhere 

 numerous fish have been taken from the stomach of this species of shark. 



Means of capture. — Baited hooks, with a chain to the lower end of the line to 

 preclude its being bitten through. Off Norway there are regular fisheries for 

 this shark. 



As food. — According to Crantz, it is eaten by the Icelanders and Norwegians 

 but rejected by the Greenlanders. 



Breeding. — Liitken (Vid. Medd. 1879-80, pp. 56-61) observes that the propaga- 

 tion of the L. microaepfialus must be different from that of all other Selachians. 

 While S. rostratus arid Scymnus lichia are known to be viviparous in the ordinary 

 way, this mode of generation is unknown in L. microcephalus. No foetus of it is 

 known, nor egg enclosed in a corneous egg-case, as seen in Scyllium, liaia, &c., but 

 merely a large number of great soft globular eggs, without any hard shell, in the 

 abdomen of a " Haakal." It might have been supposed, from the earlier accounts 

 of the anatomy of -this shark, that these eggs were dropped into the abdomen, 

 carried outwards through the pori abdominales, and fecundated after deposition, 

 but the discovery of the oviducts now leaves it questionable whether fecundation 

 takes place outside or inside the body. Anyhow the eggs are deposited without 

 any solid covering in the soft mud at the bottom of the deep sea, and this fact 

 agrees with the apparent want of any uterine dilatation, shell-secreting glands, 

 &c., in the oviducts of this great northern shark (Zool. Record, 1874). 



Diseases. — The eye appears very subject to attacks of a peculiar parasite, 

 Lerneopoda elongata, Grant, and which eventually occasions blindness. 



Habitat. — Common in the Arctic Seas, and is frequently taken in the herring 

 nets in Newfoundland (H. Saxby, Zool. 1871, p. 2553). Occasional stragglers 

 have been taken off our shores, and in 1832 one was captured in the estuary of the 

 Seine. One has been recorded from the Orkneys (W. Baikie, Zool. 1853, p. 3846), 

 and one, 13 ft. long, in 1824 was found dead at Barra Firth, Uist. Fleming recorded 

 one in 1803 from the Pentland Firth. In May, 1849, one 13 ft. 9 in. long was 



• For its visceral anatomy, see Turner, Proc. Boy. Soc. Edin. viii, 1875, p. 81. 



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