SQUALUS, the SHARK-KIND; a genus belonging to the order of amphibians. There are five spiracula, one on each side of the neck, the body is somewhat oblong and cylindrical; and the mouth is situated in the anterior part of the head. There are 15 species, all inhabitants of the ocean. The most remarkable are,
1. The Squatina, or angel-fish, has a large head; teeth broad at their base, but slender and very sharp.
above,
Squalus. above, and disposed in five rows all round the jaws. Like those of all sharks, they are capable of being raised or depressed by means of muscles uniting them to the jaws, not being lodged in sockets as the teeth of cetaceous fish are. The back is of a pale ash-colour, and very rough; along the middle is a prickly tuberculated line: the belly is white and smooth. The pectoral fins are very large, and extend horizontally from the body to a great distance; they have some resemblance to wings, whence its name. The ventral fins are placed in the same manner, and the double penis is placed in them; which forms another character of the males in this genus.
This is the fish which connects the genus of rays and sharks, partaking something of the character of both; yet is an exception to each in the situation of the mouth, which is placed at the extremity of the head. It is a fish not unfrequent on most of our coasts, where it prowls about for prey like others of the kind. It is extremely voracious; and, like the ray, feeds on flounders and flat fish, which keep at the bottom of the water. It is extremely fierce, and dangerous to be approached. Mr Pennant mentions a fisherman whose leg was terribly tore by a large one of this species, which lay within his nets in shallow water, and which he went to lay hold of incautiously. The aspect of these, as well as the rest of the genus, have much malignity in them: their eyes are oblong, and placed lengthwise in their head, sunk in it, and overhung by the skin, and seem fuller of malevolence than fire. Their skin is very rough; the ancients made use of it to polish wood and ivory, as we do at present that of the greater dog-fish. The flesh is now but little esteemed on account of its coarseness and rankness; yet Archestratus, (as quoted by Athenæus, p. 319.), speaking of the fish of Miletus, gives this first the place, in respect to its delicacy, of the whole cartilaginous tribe. They grow to a great size; being sometimes near an hundred weight.
2. The spinax, or pickled dog-fish, takes its name from a strong and sharp spine placed just before each of the back-fins, distinguishing it at once from the rest of the British sharks. The nose is long, and extends greatly beyond the mouth, but is blunt at the end. The teeth are disposed in two rows, are small and sharp, and bend from the middle of each jaw towards the corners of the mouth. The back is of a brownish ash-colour; the belly white.—It grows to the weight of about 20 pounds.
This species swarms on the coasts of Scotland, where it is taken, split, and dried; and is a food among the common people. It forms a sort of internal commerce, being carried on women's backs 14 or 16 miles up the country, and sold or exchanged for necessaries.
3. The maximus, basking shark, or the sun-fish of the Irish. This species has been long known to the inhabitants of the south and west of Ireland and Scotland, and those of Caernarvonshire and Anglesea; but having never been considered in any other than a commercial view, is described by no English writer except Mr Pennant; and, what is worse, mistaken for and confounded with the luna of Rondeletius, the same that our English writers call the sun-fish. The Irish and Welsh give it the same name, from its lying as if to sun itself on the surface of the water; and for the same
reason Mr Pennant calls it the basking shark. It was long taken for a species of whale, till Mr Pennant pointed out the branchial orifices on the sides, and the perpendicular site of the tail.—These are migratory fish, or at least it is but in a certain number of years that they are seen in multitudes on the Welsh seas, though in most summers a single, and perhaps strayed, fish, appears. They inhabit the northern seas, even as high as the arctic circle. They visited the bays of Caernarvonshire and Anglesea in vast shoals in the summers of 1756 and a few succeeding years, continuing there only the hot months; for they quitted the coast about Michaelmas, as if cold weather was disagreeable to them. Some old people say they recollect the same sort of fish visiting these seas in vast numbers about 40 years ago. They appear in the Frith of Clyde, and among the Hebrides, in the month of June, in small droves of seven or eight, but oftener in pairs. They continue in those seas till the latter end of July, when they disappear.
They have nothing of the fierce and voracious nature of the shark kind, and are so tame as to suffer themselves to be stroked: they generally lie motionless on the surface, commonly on their bellies, but sometimes, like tired swimmers, on their backs. Their food seemed to consist entirely of sea-plants, no remains of fish being ever discovered in the stomachs of numbers that were cut up, except some green stuff, the half-digested parts of algae, and the like. Linnaeus says it feeds on medusæ.
At certain times, they are seen sporting on the waves, and leaping with vast agility several feet out of the water. They swim very deliberately, with the dorsal fins above water. Their length is from three to twelve yards, and sometimes even longer. Their form is rather slender, like others of the shark kind. The upper jaw is much longer than the lower, and blunt at the end. The tail is very large, and the upper part remarkably longer than the lower. The colour of the upper part of the body is a deep leaden; the belly white. The skin is rough like shagreen, but less so on the belly than the back. Within-side the mouth, towards the throat, is a very short sort of whalebone. The liver is of a great size, but that of the female is the largest; some weighs above 1000 pounds, and yield a great quantity of pure and sweet oil, fit for lamps, and also much used to cure bruises, burns, and rheumatic complaints. A large fish has afforded to the captors a profit of 20l. They are viviparous; a young one about a foot in length being found in the belly of a fish of this kind. The measurements of one found dead on the shore of Loch Ranza in the isle of Arran were as follow: The whole length, 27 feet 4 inches: first dorsal fin, 3 feet; second, 1 foot: pectoral fin, 4 feet; ventral, 2 feet: the upper lobe of the tail, 5 feet; the lower, 3.
They will permit a boat to follow them, without accelerating their motion till it comes almost within contact; when a harpooner strikes his weapon into them, as near to the gills as possible. But they are often so insensible as not to move till the united strength of two men have forced in the harpoon deeper. As soon as they perceive themselves wounded, they fling up their tail and plunge headlong to the bottom; and fre-
Squalus. frequently coil the rope round them in their agonies, attempting to disengage the harpoon from them by rolling on the ground, for it is often found greatly bent. As soon as they discover that their efforts are in vain, they swim away with amazing rapidity, and with such violence, that there has been an instance of a vessel of 70 tons having been towed away against a fresh gale. They sometimes run off with 200 fathoms of line, and with two harpoons in them; and will employ the fishers for 12, and sometimes for 24, hours before they are subdued. When killed, they are either hauled on shore, or, if at a distance from land, to the vessel's side. The liver (the only useful part) is taken out, and melted into oil in kettles provided for that purpose. A large fish will yield eight barrels of oil, and two of worthless sediment.
4. The carcharias, or white shark, grows to a very great bulk, Gillius says to the weight of 4000 pounds: and that in the belly of one was found a human corpse entire; which is far from incredible, considering their vast greediness after human flesh. The mouth of this fish is furnished with (sometimes) a sixfold row of teeth, flat, triangular, exceedingly sharp at their edges, and finely serrated. Mr Pennant has one that is rather more than an inch and a half long. Grew says, that those in the jaws of a shark two yards in length are not half an inch; so that the fish to which this tooth belonged must have been six yards long, provided the teeth and body keep pace in their growth.
This dreadful apparatus, when the fish is in a state of repose, lie quite flat in the mouth; but when he seizes his prey, he has power of erecting them by the help of a set of muscles that join them to the jaw. The mouth is placed far beneath; for which reason these, as well as the rest of the kind, are said to be obliged to turn on their backs to seize their prey; which is an observation as ancient as the days of Pliny. The eyes are large; the back broad, flat, and shorter than that of other sharks. The tail is of a semilunar form, but the upper part is longer than the lower. It has vast strength in the tail, and can strike with great force; so that the sailors instantly cut it off with an axe as soon as they draw one on board. The pectoral fins are very large, which enables it to swim with great swiftness. The colour of the whole body and fins is a light ash. The ancients were acquainted with this fish; and Oppian gives a long and entertaining account of its capture. Their flesh is sometimes eaten, but is esteemed coarse and rank.—They are the dread of the sailors in all hot climates, where they constantly attend the ships in expectation of what may drop overboard: a man that has that misfortune perishes without redemption; they have been seen to dart at him like gudgeons to a worm. A master of a Guinea ship informed Mr Pennant, that a rage of suicide prevailed among his new-bought slaves, from a notion the unhappy creatures had, that after death they should be restored again to their families, friends, and country. To convince them at least that they should not reanimate their bodies, he ordered one of their corpses to be tied by the heels to a rope and lowered into the sea; and though it was drawn up again as fast as the united force of the crew could be exerted, yet in that short space the sharks had devoured every part but the feet, which were secured at the end of the cord.
Squalus. Swimmers very often perish by them; sometimes they lose an arm or leg, and sometimes are bit quite afunder, serving but for two morsels for this ravenous animal: a melancholy tale of this kind is related in a West-India ballad, preserved in Dr Percy's Relics of ancient English Poetry.
5. The glaucus, or blue shark, is of an oblong form: the nose extends far beyond the mouth: it wants the orifices behind the eyes, which are usual in this genus: the nostrils are long, and placed transversely. Arteri remarks a triangular dent in the lower part of the back. The skin is smoother than that of other sharks: the back is of a fine blue colour; the belly of a silvery white. Linnaeus says, that its teeth are granulated. Rondeletius says he was an eye-witness to its fondness for human flesh: that these fish are less destructive in our seas, is owing to the coolness of the climate, which is well known to abate the fierceness of some, as well as the venom of other animals.
6. The long-tailed shark, or sea-fox, is most remarkable for the great length of the tail: the whole measure of one examined by Mr Pennant being 13 feet, of which the tail alone was more than six, the upper lobe extending greatly beyond the lower, almost in a straight line. The body was round and short: the nose short, but sharp-pointed: the eyes large, and placed immediately over the corners of the mouth, which was small, and not very distant from the end of the nose. The teeth triangular, small for the size of the fish, and placed in three rows. The back ash-colour; the belly white; the skin universally smooth.
The ancients styled this fish axaris, and vulpes, from its supposed cunning. They believed, that when it had the misfortune to have taken a bait, it swallowed the hook till it got at the cord, which it bit off, and so escaped. They are sometimes taken in our seas, and have been imagined to be the fish called the thresher, from its attacking and beating the grampus with its long tail, whenever that species of whale rises to the surface to breathe.
7. The canicula, or spotted shark.—The weight of one examined by Mr Pennant was six pounds three ounces, and yet it measured three feet eight inches in length; so light are the cartilaginous fish in respect to their size. The nose was short and very blunt, not extending above an inch and an half beyond the mouth. The nostrils were large, placed near the mouth, and covered with a large angular flap: the head very flat. The eyes were oblong, behind each a large orifice opening to the inside of the mouth. The teeth small, sharp, smooth at their sides, straight, and disposed in four rows. The tail was finned, and below extended into a sharp angle. The colour of the whole upper part of the body and the fins was brown, marked with numbers of large distinct black spots: some parts of the skin were tinged with red; the belly was white. The whole was remarkably round, and had a strong smell. The tendrils that issue from each end of the purse of this fish are much more delicate and slender than those of any other; are as fine as Indian grass, and very much resemble it. The female of this species, and we believe of other sharks, is greatly superior in size to the male; so that in this respect there is an agreement between the fish and the birds of prey. They bring about 19 young at a time: the fishermen believe
Squamarie believe that they breed at all times of the year, as they scarce ever take any but what are with young.
8. The catulus, or lesser spotted shark. — The weight of one that was brought to Mr Pennant by a fisherman was only one pound twelve ounces; the length two feet two inches: it is of a slender make in all parts. The head was flat; the nostrils covered with a long flap; the nose blunt, and marked beneath with numerous small punctures; behind each eye was a small orifice; the back-fins, like those of the former, placed far behind. The ventral fins are united, forming as if it were but one, which is a sure mark of this species. The tail finned like that of the greater dog-fish. The colour is cinereous, streaked in some parts with red, and generally marked with numbers of small black spots; but in some they are very faint and obscure. The belly is white. This species breeds from 9 to 13 young at a time; is very numerous on some of our coasts, and very injurious to the fisheries.