THE INCREDIBLE SHARKS 329 



when fear and distrust are divorced from the mind is it pos- 

 sible to think of sharks or of serpents or Stukas objectively. 

 I reiterate; sharks from the viewpoint of architecture are 

 among the earth's most carefully designed animals. 



I do not propose to enter the interminable discussion as to 

 whether sharks do or do not attack human beings. There seems 

 to be good evidence for both arguments. There are a few au- 

 thentic cases of attack; many hundreds of records which are 

 neither authentic nor accurate and a large number that are 

 definite fictions. Many of the instances of attack credited to 

 sharks are really to be attributed to barracuda, about which 

 there is no question of their ferocity and savagery. Most sharks 

 are entirely harmless, including several of the largest species. 

 True man-eaters are rare. 



I once held to the common thesis that all sharks are to be 

 avoided and are objects of repugnance. My metamorphosis 

 into an Elasmobranchophile began at Sheep Cay where, be- 

 cause of my ignorance, I was thrown into such a panic, and 

 blossomed into genuine interest with the adventure of the tiger 

 shark at the barrier reef. Do not misunderstand me; I am not 

 of that strange genus of humans who has any desire to hobnob 

 with sharks nor tackle them with a knife, as did one individual 

 for the sake of making a motion picture; nor do I tempt fate 

 by hitting them on their tender snouts to shoo them away as 

 another writer claims to have done. Rather, I have a deep re- 

 spect for all sharks. I prefer in my underwater excursions to 

 efface myself as much as it is possible in a metal helmet gurgling 

 with a stream of bubbles, and to sit quietly back in the inter- 

 stices of some well-protected coral where undisturbed and 

 more or less unseen, I can watch the activity about me. 



Sharks about Inagua do not swarm so I cannot truthfully tell 

 any tale of being surrounded and hemmed in by schools of 

 these animals. On the contrary most sharks are distinctly soli- 



