Book 7
43
There is a kind of shark called γαλεὸς, which is eaten. And Icesius, in his treatise on Materials, says that the best and tenderest kind of galei are those called asteriæ. But Aristotle says that there are many kinds of them—the thorny, the smooth, the spotted, the young galeus, the fox shark, and the file shark. But Dorion, in his Book on Fishes, says that the fox shark has only one fin towards his tail, but has none along the ridge of his back. But Aristotle, in the fifth book of his Parts of Animals, says that the centrines is also a kind of shark, and also the notidanus. But Epænetus, in his Cookery Book, calls the latter the enotideus, and says that the centrines is very inferior to him, and that it has a bad smell; and that the one may be distinguished from the other by the fact of the centrines having a sort of spur on his first fin, while the rest of the kinds have not got such a thing. And he says that these fishes have no fat or suet in them, because they are cartilaginous.
43
And the acanthias, or thorny shark, has this peculiarity, that his heart is five-cornered. And the galeus has three young at most; and it receives its young into his mouth, and immediately ejects them again; and the variegated galeus is especially fond of doing this, and so is the fox shark. But the other kinds do not do so, because of the roughness of the skins of the young ones.
