04 
SCYMNUS. 
The first dorsal fin before or over the abdominal fins, the second 
dorsal behind them. Teeth in the upper jaw straight and narrow, in 
the lower jaw crooked, pyramidal, and equal-sided. No anal fin; a 
short tail. 
SPINOUS SHARK. 
Squalua spinosus, 
Squale Boude 
Eeldnorhim^s spinosus, 
Tuhton’s LiniiEeus. 
Lacepede ahd Risso. 
Yakkell’s Br. Fishes, vol. ii, p. 534 Taken 
from a figm-e by Dr. A. Smith, who gives it 
the name of Echinorhinus ohesus — the E. 
spinosus of Blainville. It is not easy to 
suppose that Mr. Yarrell’a more lengthened 
figure at p. 532 can repre.seut the same fish; 
and at least his second figure alone can bo 
quoted for the examples found in Britain, 
The Spinous Shark was not known to naturalists before the 
latter part of the last (eighteenth) century, and at present 
little more is ascertained concerning it besides its figure and 
the extent of sea through which it is distributed. Dr. Smith 
obtained it at the Cajpe of Good Hope; it seems scarcely rare 
in the Mediterranean, and in Britain it has been taken in 
Yorkshire, at Brixham, and three or four times in Cornwall. 
Its harmts probably are in very deep water, and consequently 
little of its peculiar habits can be expected to become known, 
except by some fortunate accident of uncertain occurrence. We 
must rest content, therefore, in collecting what scattered notices 
exist, with the addition of the very little obtained by obser- 
vation. 
It is evident that this fish keeps near the ground in its 
favourite places of resort, and that they are only a few stragglers 
