NONSUCH 



with the details of a shark's internal anatomy as 

 with those of other fishes, but we made a prelimi- 

 nary rough dissection and measured and weighed 

 several organs, including one apparently empty, 

 elongate ovary. Delving deeper into the white body 

 chamber I brought up a strange organ with an un- 

 accountable shape, an organ to which we could not 

 give a name. I placed it in a deep pan and at my 

 first incision, there emerged a perfectly good di- 

 minutive shark. When after him there trailed a yolk 

 sac like a collapsed parachute I realized that my 

 ideas of sharks' ovaries needed revision. Further 

 search revealed the second ovary equally large. 



Later, at leisure, I investigated and found 

 twenty-five embryos in each ovary. So here was at 

 last the tale of the catch — not a single shark, but 

 the pair of pilots which got away, a sucking-fish, 

 fifty-two strange little crustaceans and fifty-one 

 sharks — a goodly collection of one hundred and 

 six individual animals: My great blue shark was 

 less a fish than a mother, an aquarium and a zoologi- 

 cal garden combined. 



While men throughout the ages have probably 

 more frequently cursed than admired the blue 

 shark, there are delightful bits on record of attri- 

 butes more charming than veracious. 



Eighteen centuries ago Oppian in his classic 

 Halieutica wrote of our shark as follows: 



" Of all oviparous kinds that throng the sea. 

 The fond Blue Sharks in tender care surpass. 



180 



