1146 
SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
but large enough to draw blood from the finger, if 
incautiously handled — gathered in patches or series, 
with interstices between, that give the body an ap- 
pearance like that of elephant-hide. Hence the name 
conferred upon the species by Lesueur. 
The Basking Shark is a pelagic fish of the North 
Atlantic®, whose manner of life calls to mind in many 
ways that of the whales, which it also rivals in size. 
A line between North Africa and Virginia forms the 
southern limit of its geographical range, so far as this 
has been investigated up to the present time; and the 
species roves northwards to Iceland and the extreme 
north of Norway, even to Varanger Fjord, principally, 
no doubt, within the area of the Gulf Stream. At all 
events it does not appear to be, strictly speaking, an 
arctic fish; and the old accounts from Greenland of 
an immensely large Shark, which was said to devour 
dolphins (especially whitefish), rorquals, and humpbacks, 
whereon Fabricius based his statement * * * 6 that the Bask- 
ing Shark occurred on the coast of Greenland, have 
been assigned by Lutken (1. c.) to the category of 
fables. The comparatively small eyes and the firm, 
thick skin are in themselves sufficient to suggest that 
the Basking Shark is no deep-sea fish, properly so call- 
ed; and the probability that its life is passed in the 
upper levels of the ocean is further increased by the 
nature of the food to which it is evidently referred. 
As yet, it is true, we know but little of the bathy- 
metric distribution in the open sea of those minute 
creatures — chiefly lower crustaceans, in general so- 
called Entomostraca, and the larvse or even the eggs of 
fishes and invertebrates — which compose the diet both 
of the large whales and the Basking Shark. Investiga- 
tions into the biological conditions at various depths in 
the high seas, vigorously pursued as they have been 
since first instituted by the SAvedish expedition in 1869 
on board the corvette Josephine 0 , have still much left 
to teach us. But Ave already know that the supply of 
animal food of this kind in the upper strata of the open 
sea is plentiful at depths varying with the changes of 
the weather or the set of the currents, and that it 
fluctuates at different seasons of the year. Guided 
hereby, the Basking Shark too probably shifts its quar- 
ters. The course taken by the Gulf Stream affords an 
explanation why the Basking Shark is found more fre- 
quently off the north of Nonvay than on the south 
coast and has never been met Avith in the Skager Rack 
or Cattegat. In the North Sea it is rarer than on the 
Avest and south coasts of Great Britain and Ireland. 
On the Avest coast of France and in Portuguese waters 
it has been taken once or tAvice. It penetrates into the 
Mediterranean through the Straits of Gibraltar (Doder- 
lein). On the east coast of North America it occurs 
in the same manner as on this side of the Atlantic. 
The Basking Shark is a peaceable and sluggish 
creature, harmless to man or other animals of any magni- 
tude, and asserting its presence only by roving in quest 
of food at the surface, sometimes Avith snout above the 
Avater. When it accelerates its pace, cleaving the Avaves 
Avith the projecting dorsal and caudal fins, and when 
it swims in a company of several, one behind another, 
it presents an appearance that may Avell have dictated 
an occasional contribution to the history of the great 
sea-serpent. Or the same phenomenon may be suggested 
to the imagination by a sight of this fish as it lies 
during calm Aveather in repose at the surface, often 
Avith the belly upAvards, and as the Avaves lap its rotund 
body. The name of Basking Shark Avas conferred upon 
it by Pennant in exchange for the older name of Sun- 
fish employed on the Irish and Welsh coasts, an allusion 
to its habit of lying motionless at the surface, as if 
basking in the sun. Yet extremes meet, even in the 
temperament of the Basking Shark; and it has some- 
times been seen to leap several feet out of the water. 
In spring the Basking Shark approaches the Irish 
coast. Whether this is done for purposes of propaga- 
tion, is unknown. Pennant found in a female a foetus 
about 3 dm. long; but he does not state the time of 
year. On the Avest coast of Ireland, about 100 miles 
Avest of CleAv Bay, is a bank long celebrated for its 
Basking Shark fishery. Off Tory Island too (N. W. 
coast of Ireland) companies of 60 to 100 Basking Sharks 
have been seen. In certain years they are commoner; 
during others they perhaps do not put in an appearance. 
From this locality they seem to migrate northwards 
along the Avest coast of Scotland. 
a ■ Beown-Goode indeed states (Fisher., Fisher. Industr. U. S., sect. I, p. 669) that the Basking Shark is not unfrequently harpooned 
by whalers on the Pacific coast, where a specimen of this species was examined at Monterey (California) by Jordan and Gilbert; but in their 
Synopsis of the Fishes of North America the latter writers do not mention a word about this. 
6 Fna Oroenl., p. 130. 
c See Smitt: De senaste arens under soknin gar om hafsfaunans grcins mot djupet, in the periodical Framtiden for 1870, p. 345. 
