The Shark. 417 
was brought to table by servants with coronets on their 
heads, and preceded by music. In London, every Stur- 
geon that is caught in the Thames is presented by the 
Lord Mayor to the Sovereign. The roe, when preserved 
with salt and oil, is called caviar, and is a favourite dish 
with many persons ; the best is made in Eussia. The 
flesh is also pickled or salted, and sent all over Europe. 
So prolific is this fish, that Catesby says the females fre- 
quently contain a bushel of spawn each ; and Leeuwen- 
hoek found in the roe of one of them no fewer than one 
hundred and fifty thousand million eggs ! 
THE SHARK. 
(Squalas carcharias, or Carcharias vulgaris.) 
" Increasing still the terrors of the storms, 
His jaw3 horrific arm'd with threefold fate, 
Here dwells the direful Shark/' 
The Shark differs from the whale in not being one of 
the mammalia. - It is cold-blooded, and does not suckle 
its young. It has no lungs, and its mode of breathing 
is like that of other fishes, except that its gills are fixed, 
and the water escapes by five apertures on each side. 
The body of the Shark is elongated, and tapers gradually 
from the head to the tail, or is very slightly dilated, in 
the middle. Its muzzle or nose is rounded, and projects 
very much over the mouth, the nostrils being situated 
2e 
