THE DESTINY OF A BLUE SHARK 



— for now I saw that my great blue shark was a 

 female. 



The suckmg-fish was safe in its pail, but I soon 

 found we had captured more than two creatures. 

 On the under side of one of the long pectoral fins, 

 near its base, I saw tiny beings scampering over the 

 rough skin, and I began to gather in a whole colony 

 of parasitic crustaceans, strange little creatures 

 whose life history outdoes Grimm, Dunsany and 

 Alice. Here were two and fifty of these copepods, 

 all clustered in a single village on the waving fin. 

 This exposure to incessant movement insured of 

 course an excellent supply of running water, but I 

 should think such admirable plumbing arrange- 

 ments would be more than counterbalanced by the 

 constant danger of being scraped off into the middle 

 of the ocean. They were pale yellow below, dark 

 seal brown above, this upper surface bearing a sur- 

 prising likeness to a black mask with eye-holes of 

 buff. Their dorsal plates were much like the skin 

 denticles of the shark, although why they needed 

 such protection I cannot imagine. If shark-suckers 

 were fond of copepods nothing could save them, but 

 no other living creature would dare approach a blue 

 shark for any such purpose. The legs and other ap- 

 pendages of the small crustaceans were a maze of 

 vacuum cups, explaining their gliding ability. The 

 females had two trailing ropes of eggs, and I tried 

 to imagine the adventures of an infant copepod 

 loosed on the high seas, and the probability of his 

 meeting and fastening upon a suitable shark home. 



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