THE INCREDIBLE SHARKS 335 



fishes for New York consumption. The trawl nets were dragged 

 for a full week over a stretch of several hundred miles. Every 

 half hour the drag was lifted and emptied of its contents. It 

 took seven days to secure enough edible fish for a skimpy boat- 

 load to port. Nearly every time the trawl was lifted, it was 

 bulo^incr with sharks, hundreds to the haul. We waded in shark 

 bodies up to our knees. The fishermen beat them, clubbed them, 

 slit them with razors until the decks ran with blood, trying to 

 destroy them and cursing them, for each haul meant lost 

 money. It was a futile proceeding, for the next net, like the 

 first and the next and next was packed with sharks. For seven 

 days we skipped over the ocean hoping to outrun them, nor 

 did they begin to thin out until we reached the vicinity of Cape 

 Hatteras far to the south. The ocean floor must have been 

 literally carpeted with their undulating bodies. 



Most animals eat to live. Sharks live to eat. It is their constant 

 insatiable hunger that has brought them so unfavorably to 

 attention. I frequently watched the nurse sharks on their sand 

 bar. From the shore they appeared to spend their time merely 

 ghding about, restlessly pacing back and forth between the 

 beach and the depths. Hour after hour they continued their 

 peregrinations, dark shadows against the gleaming bottom. 

 They even came in to the last few yards of surf in search of 

 carrion and crustaceans. Here their fins and broad lobed tails 

 could frequently be seen cutting the surface. But they never 

 hurried, except when I occasionally frightened them by throw- 

 ing conchs at their bodies when they came too close to shore. 

 Then they exerted themselves to the utmost to be away and 

 splashed out of the shallows with lightning speed. Usually 

 their progress was a series of interminable weavings from side 

 to side, economy of energy their characteristic. 



From the helmet they were beautiful to watch. They prowled 

 close to the bottom skimming just above the sand. Their color- 



