142 WHITE SHARK. Class IV. 



strength in the tail, and can strike with great 

 force, so that the sailors instantly cut it off with 

 an axe as soon as they draw one on board ; the 

 pectoral fins are very large, which enables it to 

 swim with great swiftness; the body and fins are 

 of a light ash-color. 



The antients were acquainted with this fish ; 

 and Oppian gives a long and entertaining ac- 

 count of its capture. Their flesh is sometimes 

 eaten, but is esteemed both coarse and rank. 



Unfortunately for mankind, this species is 

 almost universal in both the southern and north- 

 ern hemispheres. It frequents the seas of Green- 

 land, feeds on holibuts and the greater fish, on 

 seals and young porpesses, and will even attack 

 the little skin-boats of the Greenlanders, and bite 

 the person whose lower parts are lodged in it, in 

 two. Its only enemy is the blunt- headed cacha- 

 lot or Spermaceti whale, at sight of which 

 it will even fling itself out of the water on the 

 rocks, and there perish.* 



* See that admirable book the Fauna Groenlandica of the 

 Reverend Otto Fabricius, printed at Copenhagen in 1780. 



