350 THE POPULAR SCIENGE MONTHLY. 



greasy cloths, as a sort of disguise, and then to heave it overboard. 

 This was the work of a few minutes; and the effect was triumphant. 

 The monster followed after the hissing prey. We saw it dart at the 

 brick like a flash of lightning, and gorge it instanter. The shark rose 

 to the surface almost immediately, and his uneasy motions soon 

 betrayed the success of the manoeuvre. His agonies became terrible ; 

 the waters appeared as if disturbed by a violent squall, and the spray 

 was driven over the taffrail where we stood, while the gleaming body 

 of the fish repeatedly burst through the dark waves, as if writhing 

 with fierce and terrible convulsions. Sometimes we thought we heard 

 a shrill, bellowing cry, as if indicative of anguish and rage, rising 

 through the gurgling waters. His fury, however, was soon ex- 

 hausted ; in a short time the sounds broke away into distance, and 

 the agitation of the sea subsided. The shark had given himself up 

 to the tides, as unable to struggle against the approach of death, and 

 they were carrying his body unresistingly to the beach." 



Crouch, in his "Fishes of the British Islands," would indirectly 

 claim some apology for the habits of the shark tribe ; in reference to 

 which he asks why the lion and the eagle should occupy the elevated 

 places they do in popular estimation, as the king of beasts and mon- 

 arch of the air. They live by the exercise of powers similar to those 

 of the sharks, and if insatiable appetites are to take precedence, 

 sharks ought to stand in the foremost rank. 



The appearance of sharks occasionally upon our coast naturally 

 creates a certain panic among bathers ; and we may trace the break- 

 age of the nets of our fishermen to their presence, among other 

 causes. The six-gilled shark, or gray shark, is sometimes eleven or 

 twelve feet in length, and is very destructive among the pilchards on 

 the Cornish coast. The white shark is a formidable fellow ; but al- 

 though his class occasionally send over to our isles deputations of one 

 or two, we have, fortunately, not had to record of late years such a 

 visitation as that of 1785, when hundreds appeared in the British 

 Channel. This individual is, perhaps, the most formidable of all the 

 inhabitants of the ocean. Ruysch says that the whole body of a 

 man, and even a man in armor, has been found in the body of a white 

 shark. Captain King, in his " Survey of Australia," says he caught one 

 which could have swallowed a man with the greatest ease. Blumen- 

 bach says a whole horse has been found in it ; and Captain Basil Hall 

 reports the taking of one, in which, besides other things, he found 

 the whole skin of a buffalo, which a short time before had been 

 thrown overboard from his ship. The blue shark is a horrible nui- 

 sance to the fishermen, but, fortunately, it is with us only in summer, 

 when it makes itself known by hunting after the fish entangled in the 

 nets, which it does by seizing both fish and net with its keen and ser- 

 rated teeth, and swallowing fish and mesh together. As it is not 

 always pleasant to have sharks following a ship, it cannot be too well 



