NATURAL HISTORY. 



451 



had " stowed away," and the substances thus brought to light 

 have been most curious. The entire contents of a lady's 

 work-basket, down to the scissors, were found in the interior 

 of one shark, and another had actually swallowed an entire 

 bull's hide a circumstance which led the operating sailor to 

 remark that the shark had sw r allowed a bull, but could not 

 " disgest" the hide. 



The amphibious South Sea Islanders stand in great dread 

 of the Shark, and with good reason, for not a year elapses 

 without several falling victims to the rapacity of this terrific 

 animal. Nearly thirty of the natives of the Society Islands 

 were destroyed at one time by the sharks. A storm had so 

 injured the canoe in which they were passing from one island 

 to another, that they were forced to take refuge on a raft 

 hastily formed of the fragments of their canoe. Their weight 

 sunk the raft a foot or two below the surface of the water, 

 and, dreadful to say, the sharks surrounded them and dragged 

 them off the raft one by one, until the lightened raft rose 

 above the water and preserved the few survivors. 



SPIIYRXIAS. (Gr. from 2</>i'pa, a Hammer.) 



Zygsena (Gr. Zoyatva), the Hammer-headed Shark. 



The HAMMER-HEADED SHARK inhabits the same latitudes. 

 This curiously constructed fish closely resembles the white 

 shark in all respects but the head, which is widened out at 

 each side, exactly like a double-headed hammer or mallet. 



