330 BASKING SHARK. 



headlong to the bottom, and frequently coil the 

 rope round them in their agonies, attempting to 

 disengage the harpoon from them by rolling on 

 the ground ; for it is often found greatly bent. 

 As soon as they discover that their efforts are in 

 vain, they swim away with amazing rapidity, and 

 with such violence, that there has been an instance 

 of a vessel of seventy tons having been towed away 

 against a fresh gale : they sometimes run off with 

 two hundred fathom of line, and with two harpoons 

 in them, and will employ the fishers for twelve, and 

 sometimes for twenty-four hours before they are 

 subdued : when killed, they are either bawled on 

 shore, or, if at a distance from land, to the vessel's 

 side : the liver (the only useful part) is taken out, 

 and marked out, and melted into oil in kettles pro- 

 vided for the purpose. A large fish will yield eight 

 barrels of oil, and two of useless sediment. The 

 fishers observed on these Sharks a sort of leech, of 

 a reddish colour, and about two feet long, but which 

 fell off when the fish was brought to the surface 

 of the water, and left a white mark on the skin. 



A male of this species was taken in the year 

 1801 at Abbotsbiuy in Dorsetshire, entangled in a 

 fishing-seine, and, after a violent resistance, was 

 dragged ashore. It is said to have received seven- 

 teen musket-balls before it expired : its length was 

 twenty-eight feet, and its circumference in the 

 thickest part about twenty feet : its tail, from point 

 to point, near eight feet : the teeth, according to 

 its proprietor, who took the pains to count them, 

 amounted to the number of four thousand * 



