PLATE LXXXIE 
posing it in the air to dry: “it forms (says Mr. Pennant) a sort 
of internal commerce on the coasts of Scotland, being carried, on 
women’s backs, fourteen or sixteen miles up the country, and sold 
or exchanged for necessaries. In some of the northern countries 
the natives extract an oil from this fish.” 
The present species is principally distinguished from the rest ot 
the Shark tribe, by the strong bony spine situated before each of the 
two dorsal fins. This is not, however, sufficient to distinguish 
it from every other species of Shark, the Linnsean Squalus Spinax 
possessing the same character. Those two analogous species, 
though so closely allied to each other, may be readily ascertained 
by the colour of the belly, which in our species is perfectly white, 
in S. Spinax, dusky or black. Gmelin considers as a variety 
of Squalus Acanthias, the fish described by Molina in his History 
of Chili, a kind of Shark similar to ours, but having the body 
marked with ocellated spots. We are not perfectly clear as to this 
being a variety only, suspecting rather that it muse be a distinct 
species, in which case there would be three kinds of Squalus, known 
by having both dorsal fins armed anteriorly with a single spine 
each. 
Writers mention that the Danish and Norwegian fishermen regard 
the spines of Squalus Acanthias as poisonous, and are therefore ex- 
tremely cautious in its capture. It has been stated by Bloch, that 
those spines appear already formed in the young Shark before it 
ls excluded from the egg, only that they are not then so hard as 
m the full grown animals. Two small specimens that have lately 
occurred to our observation seem, however, to prove, that this is 
not precisely the fact These were each about five inches long, 
VOL. IV. 
D 
