112 PLATYSOMI. 



England, the skirts or wing are considered excel- 

 lent eating.* 



Another reason why sharks do not disturb them, 

 when they become large ; arises, it would seem, 

 from a conscious inability to swallow the morsel. 

 Prowling, says a writer, at the bottom of the ocean, 

 in the dark caverns beyond the ken of human 

 vision, and in cavities, dark and horrible beyond 

 what the imagination has- ever conceived, they, 

 perhaps, continue to grow, till they become mon- 

 sters indeed. As we have no exact knowledge of 

 the period to which the lives of fishes are pro- 



* No city in the world, is better and more plentifully sup- 

 plied with fish, than London. Turbot and brill are carried 

 there from the coast of Holland ; Salmon from the rivers in 

 Scotland and Ireland, — a few however are caught in the 

 Thames, — at the mouth of which mackerel and cod fish are 

 taken. In 1828, the following calculation was made of the 

 quantity of fish sold at Billingsgate. 



Plaise and skates - 50,754 bushels. 



Turbot 87,958 



Fresh Cod .... - 447,130 



Herrings - - - . - 3,336,407 



Haddocks .... 482,493 



Mackerel - 3,076,700 



Fresh Salmon 45,446 



Lobsters .... 1,954,600 



To supply the actual demands of the people with this food, 

 it required 3,827 vessels ; the number of fishermen, there- 

 fore, exclusively devoted to this particular business, and sub- 

 servient to that metropolis alone, is truly immense. 



