BASKING SHARK. 9 



are the features of the vertebral column, the pectoral and pelvic 

 girdles, and the skeletal parts of the pectoral, pelvic, dorsal, anal 

 and caudal fins, except that the horny fin-rays are not reproduced 

 in the cast. For an illustration of horny fin-rays the visitor is 

 referred to the skeleton of the pectoral fin of the Dog-fish (3) in 

 Wall-case 1. 



Hanging from the roof above the skeleton is a specimen of the 

 Basking Shark, 28 feet long, caught off Bergen in 190-1, and 

 presented to the Museum by the Hon. Walter Rothschild. The 

 Basking Shark grows to 33 feet or more. Its food consists of 

 small fishes and other marine animals that swim in shoals. The 

 gill-rakers are highly specialised, and serve to retain the smallest 

 food organisms and to prevent their escaping through the gill- 

 slits. On the west coast of Ireland the Basking Shark is caught 

 for the sake of the oil obtained from the liver. The Shark is of a 

 harmless disposition and does not attack man. 



On the left side of the skeleton is the head of a Basking 

 Shark which was 28 feet long, and was caught in March 1875 

 near Shanklin, in the Isle of Wight*. This head shows the 

 great size of the gill-slits, the right and left of which nearly 

 meet under the throat, and the smallness of the teeth. On 

 the other side of the skeleton are the pelvic fins of the same 

 specimen, which was a male. The males of all Sharks have the 

 pelvic fins produced backward into " claspers," and the interest 

 of the present specimen lies in the fact that the tooth-like bodies 

 on the claspers of the Basking Shark were first known in the 

 fossil state, and their true nature was only recognised when 

 the Shanklin specimen was exhibited in the year 1876. Three 

 examples of fossil clasper-spines are exhibited in the box adjoining. 

 These are from the B.ed Crag of Suffolk ; similar specimens have 

 been obtained from the Crag of Antwerp. Such spines were 

 long a puzzle to palaeontologists, by whom they were regarded as 

 the terminal phalanges of some large Reptile or Mammal, or the 

 separated lamella; of young teeth of a Mastodon or Mammoth, or 

 the central cores of teeth of a Xiphioid Whale. 



* Figure 2 was drawn from this specimen. 



