WHITE SHARK, 
27 
or depression j anal fin a little less than the second dorsal. 
Colour brown, darker on the hack, lighter on the belly. 
It should be observed that the tail of the White Shark, as 
represented in Mr. Yarrell’s figure, 2nd. Ed., vol. ii, p. 502, 
does not agree with a specimen of that part in my possession 
from the West Indies, nor indeed with the other figure at page 
503, nor with Lacepede’s plate 8, fig. 1 of vol. i. 
The White Shark is to sailors the most formidable of all the 
inhabitants of the ocean; for in none besides are the powers 
of inflicting injury so equally combined with eagerness to ac- 
complish it. They usually cut asunder any object of considerable 
size, and thus swallow it; but if they find a diflRcuIty in doing 
this, there is no hesitation in passing into the stomach even 
what is of enormous bulk; and the formation of the jaws and 
throat render this a matter of but little difficulty. Ruysch says 
that the whole body of a man, and even a man in armour, 
(loricatus,) has been found in the stomach of a White Shark; 
and Captain King, in his survey of Australia, says he had caught 
one which could have swallowed a man with the greatest ease. 
Elumenbach says a whole horse has been found in it; and 
Captain Basil Hall reports the taking of one in which, besides 
other things, he found the whole skin of a buffalo, which a 
short time before had been thrown overboard from his ship. 
Happily the visits of this fish to our coasts are too rare to 
expose our sailors to its depredations. 
Upper and under tooth of White Shark, 
from the West Indies. 
