1 1 8 Memoir Sears Foundation for Marine Research 



poses). Provincetown was the center of activity. However, this local demand for shark- 

 liver oil had almost entirely died before 1850. Of late years the only commercial impor- 

 tance of nasus in the western Atlantic (except as a nuisance to fishermen) has been its sal- 

 ability in the larger fish markets, for its range does not extend southward far enough to 

 bring it within the scope of the shark-leather industry that is now operating there. In 

 northern Europe, on the west coast of France, as well as in the Mediterranean, the flesh of 

 nasus is in much greater demand} this is especially so in Germany, where the local supply 

 was regularly augmented by considerable imports from Norway^° before the war. The 

 Norwegian catch has been made chiefly on long lines, the German catches chiefly in herring 

 trawls. The few that are caught in American waters are taken incidentally either on hand- 

 lines when fishing for cod, etc., or in mackerel nets. It is not game enough to be of inter- 

 est to sport-anglers. 



Range. Continental waters of the northern North Atlantic, from the Mediterranean 

 and northwestern Africa to the North Sea, Scotland, Orkneys, and southern Scandinavia, 

 on the eastern sidej less common north to Iceland, northern Norway and the Murman 

 Coast} from the Newfoundland Banks and Gulf of St. Lawrence in the west south to New 

 Jersey, and perhaps to South Carolina." It is represented in the North Pacific from north- 

 ern California to southern Alaska, Kamchatka and Japan, as well as in the Australian-New 

 Zealand region," by forms very closely allied, but not identical. 



Occurrence in the Western Atlantic. The area of regular occurrence for nasus is con- 

 fined to a much narrower latitudinal belt in the West than in the East, i.e.y from southern 

 New England to the outer coast of Nova Scotia and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, with the 

 chief center of population lying in the western side of the Gulf of Maine. Thus, while 

 there are but two records of it from the Newfoundland Banks,'* and one, except for vague 

 reports, from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, fishermen report it as the commonest large shark 

 in summer along the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia, including Cape Breton. Apparently it 

 tends to shun the cold waters of the Bay of Fundy region, there being but one positive 

 record for it in Passamaquoddy Bay. Farther west, however, in the Gulf of Maine, it is so 

 numerous on occasion that there is record of incidental catches of 1 9 in one night by six 

 men working hand-lines, with about 1 50 taken on cod-lines by a crew of fishermen on a 

 three weeks' trip near Monhegan Island, Maine. During the cruises of the United States 

 Bureau of Fisheries vessels we have seen and caught them most often in the immediate 

 vicinity of Platts Bank oflF Cape Elizabeth. It is certainly the most often seen of the larger 

 sharks around the Isles of Shoals and near Cape Anne, while in Massachusetts Bay it has 



15. Exact amounts are not available, because the landings of all species of sharks are combined in the published 

 statistics. 



16. A shark reported under the name Lamia nasus from Argentina by Lahille (An. Mus. nac. B. Aires, 34, 1928: 

 310) appears actually to have been a Make (see p. 130). 



17. See p. III. 



18. This includes one of 7 feet loj^ inches, taken June 28, 1946, in Lat. 44° 27' N., Long. 50° 00' W., reported 

 by Dr. A. M. Ramalho of Lisbon, who sent us one tooth. 



