PICKED DOG-FISH. 
1161 
of the fin, and the naked tip of each spine projects 
only a very little way above the skin. The breadth 
of the caudal and pectoral fins is also rather greater 
in proportion to their length. Somewhat smaller foe- 
tuses, 15 — 16 cm. long, with the large vitelline sac still 
attached in the form of a pear 7 cm. long, with a stalk 
measuring 27 2 cm., have a deep groove, like a seam, 
along the under surface of the snout. Their fin-spines 
are so short that the tips have not emerged from their 
scaly dermal envelope, which occupies, however, as 
great a portion of the fin-margin as in adult specimens. 
In the males only quite indistinct rudiments of the 
pterygopodia, not yet protruding from the skin, are 
visible. The coloration is fully developed. The young 
are not born until the yolk has been entirely absorbed, 
and may then have attained a length, as mentioned 
above, of 25 cm. 
The Picked Dog-fish has a very extensive geogra- 
phical range. In the North Atlantic this includes the 
most northerly parts of Europe, Iceland, and the east 
coast of the United States, as well as the west coast 
of Europe and the Mediterranean. To the south the 
species has been found off the Cape of Good Hope, the 
Mascarene Isles (Dumeril), and on the coast of Australia 
(Richardson and Gunther). In the Pacific it is also 
known from Chili (Molina), Japan (Sen leg el), and 
Behring Island (the Vega Expedition). It is conse- 
quently to be regarded, we may almost say, as a cos- 
mopolite. Throughout the west coast of Scandinavia 
it is common, and it penetrates, though more rarely, 
into the Baltic to the east coast of Riigen (Mobius and 
Heincke) and to the north-east of Scania (Wallengren®)- 
In Scania, Bohuslan, and everywhere in Norway 
the Picked Dog-fish is called Ha ( Ilaa ). In Sweden 
the name is written liaj , probably from some German 
or Dutch dialect. Other, less usual names are: Pig glia 
or Hdfisk , in Iceland Hafr or Haafur , on the Faroe Is- 
lands Haavur, in Scania Hdkatt or Hafskatt. The name 
of lia (Shark) seems to have been everywhere applied 
among the Gothic nations by preference to this species, 
the commonest Shark; and the other forms have been 
distinguished by the addition of some suffix, as Ha- 
brand (the Porbeagle), Hdstorje (the Tope), Hamcir, 
Hakdring, or Hakal (the Greenland Shark). 
The Picked Dog-tish has its constant habitat on a 
soft and oozy bottom, but, like most of the Sharks, is 
a confirmed rover. It swims in shoals, and is exceed- 
ingly voracious. Its food consists both of lower marine 
animals and of fishes, especially those of gregarious habits, 
such as Clupeoids, Garpike, and even Cod or Haddocks, 
which it bites in two with ease, though they be not 
much thinner than itself. When Picked Dog-fish appear 
in shoals, they are a great nuisance to the fisherman, 
for they plunder and damage nets set for other fishes, 
make off with hooked fish or get caught themselves 
instead, a poor exchange, and often bite off the snood 
above the hook, which is thus lost. They are said to be 
most numerous early in spring, when they approach the 
coast in enormous shoals, whose multitude, it is alleged, 
rivals that of the Herring. A boat’s crew, it is stated, 
can then take several boat-loads in a day. From Norway 
Sundevall was told that the Herring-shoals are some- 
times hemmed in near shore by Picked Dog-fish, which 
keep watch outside. They are as plentiful on the Eng- 
lish coast as in Norway, but in Bohuslan they do not 
seem to occur in quite so great numbers, when the 
Herring is not there. Strom, in his description of Sond- 
more, says that they withdraw from the shallows at the 
beginning of April, shortly after the Cod have come in, 
after which very many are hooked, about Whitsuntide, 
in the deep fjords. On the coast of Bohuslan they are 
again taken towards autumn, first on hand-lines and 
Haddock-lines, thus in somewhat deeper water, during 
August and September, when the catch is said to consist 
almost exclusively of males, and later on, in October, 
when they are said often to penetrate far up the fjords 
and to remain there until the frost sets in. During 
winter they are not met with on the said coast, except 
when the Herring is there, possibly because they are not 
sought after in the deep water where they pass this season. 
Aristotle stated that on the coast of Greece this 
fish copulates in August and brings forth its young 
from May till August. The case is apparently as a 
rule the same in Scandinavian waters. Ekstrom con- 
cluded from his observations in Bohuslan that the 
breeding is performed in shoals during August or Sep- 
tember in rather deep water. According to many cor- 
roborative statements the young are born most plenti- 
fully at the end of April and the beginning of May 
and afterwards, in less number, throughout the summer. 
W. v. Wright states that during spring the females 
assemble in large companies near land, in small pools 
Ofvers. Vet. Akad. Forh. 1866, No. 1, p. 5. 
