42 
PORBEAGLT! 
placed them together, and ’he assigns as his reason for this 
change of opinion, that he had had opportunities of examining 
four examples, which had been taken on different parts of the 
coast since 1837 — the date of the publication of the first edition 
of his work — and which has induced him to believe that the 
diflhrences observed between them and the more frequent forms, 
are only the effects of greater age. 
Something like this I have myself noticed; for in the largest 
Porbeagle I have ever seen, and which measured almost nine 
feet in length, the snout appeared much smaller than in appa- 
rently much younger examples; and the first dorsal fin appeared, 
even by measurement, nearer to the tail than is usual in the 
Porbeagle. The lateral ridge was carried along so high on the 
side, as to be nearly level with the flattened surface of the 
back, near the setting on of the tail; fi-om which position it 
was bent down suddenly to pass along its usual situation on 
the tail, in the manner represented in Donovan’s plate 108. 
The two divisions of the tail were nearly equal; and so dif- 
ferent was the appearance of this fish from that of the smaller 
and more common examples of the Porbeagle, as to leave the 
impression that it was specifically distinct; until a further 
examination removed all doubt on the subject. 
This fish is not noticed in the tenth edition of LinnEeus’s 
System, having probably been confounded, as were several others, 
with the White Shark; until it was distinguished from the latter 
by Dr. Borlase, in his “Natural History of Cornwall.” 
One of the first of the two examples of the Beaumaris 
Shark, as described by Pennant, was a female, and contained 
young ones within it, which, however, were only two in number; 
a circumstance which would lead us to supp)ose that it is a 
scanty breeder. But it is to be regretted that those young 
ones were not more closely examined and described; as from 
them we might have been able to collect more clearly the 
proof of their being either of a new or a well-known and 
recognised species. 
The Porbeagle is a common visitor on the western coasts in 
summer, and not unfrequently it wanders along the eastern 
borders of England, and even of Scotland. An instance has 
been known of its having been taken even in Orkney. It 
usually proceeds in small scattered companies, preying on 
