NICHOLS & MURPHY : LONG ISLAND SHARKS. 
29 
In the basking shark we have a si)ecies which differs from nearly all 
of the preceding in that its range extends for a great distance northward 
of the latitude of Long Island. It occurs in Arctic .seas, casually south 
to Virginia, or beyond, on our coast. The junior writer saw one in 
latitude 32° N., longitude 39° W., on September i, 1912. It has been 
taken in the Mediterranean, near vSardinia, and sharks of the same or a 
closely allied species have been recorded from Australia and the west 
coast of South America. In 1822 an exami)le was cajitured in the lower 
harbor of New York, and another was taken at W'esthampton on 
Jiuie 29, 191 5. 
The basking shark, or bone shark as seafarers generally call it, is a 
sluggish, pelagic, surface-swnmming species. This shark and its tropical 
counterpart the whale shark ( /\/iinodo)i) , are the largest of fishes, yet 
among the most hel]iless and inoffensive so far as dental equipment is 
concerned. Their teeth are exceedingly minute, conical, numerous, 
arranged in several rows, and probably without u.se in feeding. The 
mouth, how-ever, is of extraordinary width, and the gill-rakers, which are 
greatly developed, doubtless function as does the baleen of whalebone- 
whales in .straining small fishes and other marine creatures from the 
water. 
At certain .seasons basking sharks are gregarious, shoals of them 
l\ing motionless with backs awash. Pairs also have a habit of swimming 
in tandem formation, one immediately- behind the other. It is very 
likeh* that two such great fishes, with their high dorsal fins showing like 
leg-o' -mutton .sails forty or fift\- feet a])art, have more than once given 
rise to tales of the .sea-ser]ient. 
Both the bone shark and the whale shark have enormous livers 
which yield a great quantity of marketable oil, sometimes as much as a 
