THE EUROPEAN SEAS. 



39 



view. These were the green cod or sei (Pollachius 

 virens), abundant enough in Nordland and Finmark, 

 and a little sucker {Liparis vulgaris). Scoresby 

 notices and describes a more characteristic fish, in the 

 Greenland shark (Lwmargus borealis), a large animal, 

 twelve or fourteen feet in length or more, and six 

 or eight feet in circumference. It is harmless to 

 man, but an enemy of whales, biting and tearing 

 its superior monsters when alive, and eating them 

 up when they die, gorging itself with blubber like 

 an Esquimaux, or other northern person, scooping 

 hemispherical pieces, each as large as a man's head, 

 out of the whale's body, and swallowing as much as 

 ever it can, until it has so filled itself with its dinner 

 that it has no place wherein to stow away any 

 more ; heeding no annoyance, not even the stab of 

 knives at dinner-time, and contenting itself with a 

 fasting diet of small fishes and crabs on those days 

 when whale's beef is forbidden, because not to be 

 procured. 



This scarcity of species of fish does not hold good 

 throughout the Arctic province, for in its southern 

 and transitional portions there are not only large 

 fisheries established, but numerous kinds taken. 

 Travellers to the North Cape have often remarked 

 the abundance of fish seen in the clear waters of the 

 Finmark seas. Thus Capel Brooke * observes that 

 the different levels of the sea in the bay of Ham- 

 merfest seemed swarming with different kinds ; the 

 * Tour in Lapland, &c. 



