22 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



SHARKS 



Sharks are always objects of interest, not only to fishermen and mariners but 

 to seaside visitors generally, because of their evil appearance, their ferocity, the 

 large size to which some of them grow, the destruction they wreak on fishermen's 

 nets and lines as well as on the smaller fishes on which they prey, and the bad 

 reputation certain kinds have earned, rightly or wrongly, as man-eaters. 



The Gulf of Maine is not particularly rich in sharks (compared with our south- 

 ern coasts, very poor indeed), for while the number of species actually recorded 

 there is considerable (indeed any high-seas shark might straggle thither) the little 

 spiny dogfish alone is numerous in the sense in which this term is applied to the 

 various commercial fishes. Only one of the larger species, the mackerel shark 

 (Isurus punctatus), visits us in numbers sufficient for one to be fairly sure 

 to see it during a summer's boating off the coast north of Cape Cod. With 

 the larger sharks generally so scarce (the mackerel shark is weak-toothed and 

 perfectly harmless to anything larger than the fishes on which it feeds) , the danger 

 of attacks on bathers is negligible. Indeed, not a single well-authenticated 

 instance of the sort is on record 14 for the past SO years for the coast north of Cape 

 Cod, though the beaches yearly are crowded with vacationists. As long as the 

 white shark occasionally strays into the Gulf, however (p. 40), it is always remotely 

 possible that some summer we may be horrified by the news of such a tragedy as 

 occurred on the New Jersey coast in July, 1916, when several persons were killed 

 or injured, presumably by a shark of this species that was captured nearby a few 

 days later. 15 



Most Gulf of Maine sharks — certainly all the co mm oner ones — are viviparous, 

 giving birth to young not only practically adult in structure but of relatively large 

 size at birth. 



As sharks are of little commercial value in the Gulf of Maine (attempts to 

 introduce the dogfish as a food fish having failed so far) they are an unmitigated 

 nuisance to the fishermen because of their damage to nets and other gear. 



It is possible to identify all sharks so far known from the Gulf — and this in- 

 cludes all that are apt to occur there except as strays — by the size, structure, and 

 relative locations of the fins, and by such tooth characters as may be seen at a 

 glance at the open mouth or easily felt with the finger (after the shark is dead !) . 



In the following descriptions of the several species we have attempted to 

 present only such features as will tell what shark is at hand; for more minute par- 

 ticulars we refer the reader to Garman's monograph (1913), which is not only the 

 most authoritative work on this group of fishes, but in which almost all our species 

 are beautifully pictured. 



11 In 1830 — an event often quoted — one Joseph Blaney, fishing from a small boat in Massachusetts Bay off Swampscott, Mass., 

 was attacked by some fish that was seen to overset and sink his boat and presumably devoured him, for neighboring fisher- 

 men, who hastened to his rescue, found no trace of him. Whether his attacker was a large shark or, as we think more likely, 

 a killer whale, is an open question. 



» Murphy and Nichols (The shark situation in the waters about New York. The Brooklyn Museum Quarterly, Vol. Ill, 

 October, 1916, No. 4, pp. 145-160. Brooklyn) give a detailed account of this occurrence. 



