1132 
SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
them for eighteenpence ; and yet the Shark had been 
hungry enough to gorge the bait. To the fisherman the 
Blue Shark causes great annoyance, as it robs the long- 
lines of their bait, and cuts the line in two or twines 
the latter round its body, by rolling over and over, 
in such a complicated manner that the task of disent- 
anglement is hopeless; and it plucks the fish out of 
the net and tears asunder the meshes. 
The flesh of the Blue Shark is hard and has a nau- 
seous smell, but it is eaten in Italy by the poor. The 
only other value of the fish consists in its oily liver 
and finely shagreened skin. • 
Genus GALEORHINUS. 
Spiracles open , though small. Peduncle of the tail without t r 
Both in form of body and manner of life the ge- 
nus of the Smooth Sharks closely resembles the pre- 
ceding one; but they do not attain the same dimensions 
as the man-eater Sharks, and the narratives related ever 
since Pliny’s time of combats between divers and 
Smooth Sharks are probably based on a confusion with 
Blue Sharks, though the Tope is sometimes large enough 
to take a substantial mouthful from the body of a 
ansverse notch. Valve of the spiral intestine spirally coiled. 
swimmer. The ground-colour of the body, though it 
does not distinguish them in the least from several 
man-eating Sharks, has given rise to the name of 
Gray Sharks (Nilsson in Skand. Fauna); but this 
name is more commonly applied to another genus, also 
occurring in the North Sea, namely Notidanus. 
Only two species are known, one from Japan alone, 
the other cosmopolitan in the tropical and temperate seas. 
THE TOPE (sw. HASTOIiJEN OK BETHAJEN). 
GALEORHINUS GALEUS. 
Plate L, fig. 2. 
Inner margin of the teeth smooth , their outer margin obliquely notched , finely serrated , but with a coarser denti- 
culation at the base. Snout in great part translucent and prolongated in a more or less flattened form to a length 
measuring about half that of the head. First dorsal fin at least about tivice as large as the second and situated 
nearer to the pectoral fins than to the ventral , the distance betiveen it and the tip of the snout being slightly more 
than 2 / 5 of the length of the body to the beginning of the caudal fin. Beginning of the second dorsal fin some- 
what further forward than that of the anal. Coloration above of a more or less light bluish gray, underneath white. 
Fig. 327. Teeth of the upper and lower jaw r s in a Tope ( Galeorhinus galeus ) 13 dm. long, 2 / 3 nat. size. 
