THE SHARK'S TEETH 



one can fail to remark the elasticity of the skeleton, 

 built up of cartilage instead of bone. We see how 

 extremely agile the creature is, its suppleness greater 

 than that of other fishes, and when we examine the 

 enormous flapping oar with which the body ends, we 

 understand how it manages to swim so swiftly. The 

 large sharks move even more swiftly than the tunny. 

 Yet, when we go over the points of the shark, we are 

 brought back, even in spite of ourselves, to its supreme 

 features, the mouth and teeth, the characteristic outfit 

 for dealing out death and destruction. 



The mouth is found under the head, not at the end 

 of it. The huge, conical snout sticks out in a compact 

 mass and seems not to possess nostrils at the end. 

 There really are nostrils, broad and full enough, capable 

 of ensuring that their possessor can scent his prey afar 

 off, but they are tucked away underneath. The mouth 

 is not far behind them, crescent-shaped, stretching 

 from one side to the other of the lower part of the 

 head, and seems like a great gulf, so huge it is when 

 the jaws are fully opened. That of the shark I examined 

 might, when wide open, have permitted the passage 

 of a whole man; and the trunk was so large that it 

 would have taken the body from head to feet. On 

 each jaw this monstrous mouth has a long row of 

 large compressed triangular teeth, finely sharpened at 

 their edges and all alike, which fill it completely and 

 form a sort of double portcullis with fearsome prongs 

 opening and closing like giant nippers. The tiger has 

 only four canines, four teeth well fitted for the job of 

 tearing and biting; the rest are shorter and not so 

 powerful. The shark's teeth are mostly all alike, and 

 all of them are capable of doing their job. In this 

 fish the armament of teeth reaches its highest per- 

 fection, and that this may be assured, that it may 

 always be able to fulfil its purpose, each part of it has 

 a reserve or substitute tooth behind it, in case it should 

 be broken and fall out. 



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