WHITE SHARK. 



325 



The size to which the Shark sometimes grows is 

 far superior to that mentioned in the former part 

 of the present description: we are informed by 

 GilHus that a Shark was seen of the weight of four 

 thousand pounds, and that in the belly of one was 

 found an entire human body, and Miiller asserts 

 that in a Shark taken at the isle of St. Margaret, 

 was found a horse*, which had probably been 

 thrown overboard from some 3hip. The size of the 

 fossil teeth of this species, so often found in the isle 

 of Malta and elsewhere affords a convincing proof 

 of the enormous specimens which have once ex- 

 isted. In the British Museum are teeth of this 

 kind measuring at least four inches and ^ half from 

 the point to the base, and six inches from the point 

 to the corner : the animal therefore to which such 

 teeth belonged must have been equal to the largest 

 of the Cetacea in volume, and we may well admit 

 the probability of a human body being swallowed 

 by such a fish, not only entire, but even without a 

 wound, and on this supposition it is that the Shark 

 has been imagined by some to have been the fish 

 ordained for the temporary confinement of the 

 prophet Jonasf. 



The internal parts of the Shark present many 



* The Shark does not spare even its own species. A Lap- 

 lander^ according to Leems^ had taken a Shark, and fastened it to 

 his canoe j but soon missed it, without being able to guess how : 

 in a short time afterwards he c^aught a second of much larger 

 size, in which, when opened, he found the one he had lost. 



f Jonam prophetam, nt veteres Herculem trinoctem, in kujus 

 ventriculo tridui spatio hccsisse verosimile est. Lin. Syst. Nat. 



