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Selly, ANG BE LP 1s) Hi 75 
feeds on flounders and flat fifh, which keep at the bot- 
tom of the water, as we have often found on open- 
ing them. It isextremely fierce and dangerous to 
be approached. We knew an inftance of a fifher- 
man, whofe leg was terribly tore by a large one of 
this fpecies, which lay within his nets in fhallow wa- 
ter, and which he went to lay hold of incautioufly. 
The afpect of thefe, as well as the reft of the ge- 
nus, have much malignity in them: their eyes are 
oblong, and placed lengthways in their head, funk 
in it, and overhung by the fkin, and feem fuller of 
malevolence than fire. 
Their fkin is very rough; the antients made ufe 
of it to polifh wood and ivory *, as we do at prefent 
that of the greater dog-fifh. The ficfh is now but 
little efteemed on account of its coarfenefs and 
ranknefs, yet Archeftratus (as quoted by Athenaeus, 
p- 319) fpeaking of the fifh of Miletus, gives this 
Fierce 
nefs. 
the firft place in refpect to its delicacy of the whole 
cartilaginous tribe. 
They grow to a great fize; we have feen them of 
near an hundred weight. 
The head is large, the teeth broad at their bafe, 
but flender and very fharp above, and difpofed in 
five rows all round the jaws. Like thofe of all 
fharks, they are capable of being raifed or depreffed 
by means of mufcles uniting them to the jaws, not 
being lodged in fockets as the teeth of cetaceous 
fifh are. © | 
* Qua lignum et ebora poliuntur, Pliaii id. ix. ¢. 12. 
Bs The 
Defcre 
