28 
BLUE SHARK. 
Linn^us. 
Gray; Catalogue of British Museum, p. 125. 
Cuvier. 
Fleming; British Animals, p. 167. 
Jenyns; Manual, p. 499. 
Yarrell; British Pishes, 2nd. Ed., vol. ii, 
p. 498. 
The Blue Shark is a restless and wandering fishj which mi- 
grates to our coasts in summer, and is even found at that time 
to stray so far north as the Orkney Islands j but it leaves us 
again on the approach of winter ; and if, with the commentators 
on the Halieuticon of the poet Oppian, we are to believe that the 
fish Glaucus of that writer is the same with the Glaucus of 
jElian, the season when it abounds with us is the time when 
it has disappeared from the seas of Italy. I have known it 
thrown on shore in Cornwall so early as the first week in 
March, but it is rarely seen before the month of June; when 
its arrival is made known by the injuries it inflicts on the nets 
and lines of fishermen. This is done in hunting after the fish 
that have become entangled, and so are more easily seized; and 
as the drift-nets are stretched out for pilchards or herrings, it 
will pass along their course from one end to the other, and 
cut out every separate fish with the portion of net that held 
it; all of which it swallows together. If it is entangled for a 
moment, its keen and serrated teeth soon effect an escape, whether 
from the net or hook; but the latter case is sometimes attended 
with difficulty, and then it is that its instinctive efforts often 
lead to a curious complication of circumstances. 
It is the habit of such of the family of Sharks as swim high 
in the water, when they seize their prey to do it with the action 
of turning the head and fore parts of the body; which method 
Squalus glaucust 
t( if 
Carckarias glaucus, 
** a 
tl 
if if 
