98 BASKING SHARK. CagIM 
veiled 
Ii, Th BASKING SHARE 
Sun-fith. Smith's Hift. Cork, li. 292. Hift. Waterford, 27%. 
i HIS fpecies has been long known to the inha- 
bitants of the fouth and weft of Ireland, and 
 thofe of Caernarvonfbire and Anglefea, but having 
never been confidered in any other than a commer- 
cial view, has till this time remained undeferibed, at 
left by any Exgli/h writer* ,; and what is worfe, mif- 
taken for and confounded with the luna of Rondele- 
zius, the fame that our Exgl/b writers call the fun- 
fi 
The [rifh and Welch give it the fame name, from 
its lying as if to fun itfelf on the furface of the wa- 
ter; and for the fame reafon we have taken the li- 
berty of calling it the bafking fhark. It was long 
taken for a fpecies of whale, till we pointed out the 
branchial orifices on the fides, and the perpendicular 
fite of the tail. | 
Thefe are migratory fifh, or at left it is but in a 
certain number of years that they-are feen in mul- 
titudes on the /Velch feas, tho’ in moft fummers a 
fingle and perhaps ftrayed fifh appears. 
* Linnaeus, p. 400. mentions a fpecies, which in fize, and in 
fome other refpecis, refembles this ; but his differs in having 
a {mall anal fin. It is his Squalus maximus. S. dentibus caninis, 
pinna dorfali anteriore majore. He fays it inhabites the ardéic feas, 
and feeds on medu/z (fea jellies) that it rivals the whale in fize, | 
has no orifice near the eyes, and hag a {mall anal fin, . 
They 
