424 PEOSE HALIEUTICS. 



opaque and dimmed into the sockets^ an expression any- 

 thing hut amiahle was still exhihited in their barred pu- 

 pils of Minerva grey. The whole forehead was bathed 

 with that phosphorescent mucus or jeUy which gives this 

 fish its luminous and spectral appearance, when seen in 

 the dusk, and adds new terrors to the apparition. The 

 aspect of the face was malign enough ; and we thought 

 that anything more ill-omened than a shark Xa/xta? Sv- 

 (TfjLop^oTepo'i, even with his jaws shut, it would be diffi- 

 cult to find ; but when the den of his piouth was forced 

 open, and we ventured to peep in, and saw there three 

 rows of sharp and pointed teeth, which alive he might 

 with one effort of volition have brought to bear all at 

 once upon the largest prey, and have made him spout 

 blood at every pore, it became apparent that a fish, even 

 like this of only eight or nine feet long, with sach a jaw 

 to tear, such a trunk to smash, and such a tail to stun, 

 must have been capable of destroying almost any crea- 

 ture he might encounter ; and we entered readily iato 

 the feelings of delight and triumph expressed by all the 

 fishermen at the capture of so thoroughly a 'mauvais 

 sujet.' Besides the jeopardy in which he places life, the 

 mischief a single shark will occasion to the thunny and 

 cod fisheries is iucalculable ; two or three of these ma- 

 rauders suffice to interrupt, and sometimes efiectually to 

 disconcert all the operations of the poor fishermen. Thi-ee 

 or four blue sharks too have been known, during the pil- 

 chard season, to hover about the tackle, clear the long 

 lines of every hook, by biting them off above the bait, 

 break through the newly-shot nets, or to even swallow 

 at a gulp the distended meshwork and its draught. 



Nor is this aU, nor yet the worst mischief recorded of 

 sharks : fond as they are of fish, they greatly prefer 

 flesh, and, unfortunately for man, his flesh before that 

 of beast or bird. Acutely discriminative, too, in bad 

 taste, their partiality is decidedly for an Asiatic rather 



