JO Memoir Sears Foundation for Marine Research 



that patrols are maintained on the more popular bathing beaches, some of which are fur- 

 ther protected by wire netting} in some parts of Cuba bathing areas are similarly pro- 

 tected with closely spaced palmetto logs. Attacks have been reliably reported from South 

 Africa, the Red Sea, India," Ceylon, the East Indies, the Philippines, the Pacific coasts of 

 Mexico and Panama, the coast of Ecuador, the Gulf of Mexico, the West Indies, the 

 Guianas, the eastern coast of the United States (see below), tropical West Africa, the 

 eastern Mediterranean, Port Said, and no doubt from other regions as well. However, 

 the incidence of attacks is very irregular. Sharks, for example, although plentiful enough 

 along the beaches of Florida, are so slight a menace that we have positive word of only 

 one or two attacks in recent years (pp. 368, 408), despite the fact that many thousands of 

 persons bathe there constantly throughout the year. The most recent instance was of a girl 

 severely bitten while bathing in the surf, only waist deep, at Mayport, Florida, in late May 

 or early June 1944. The size of the shark's jaws, as outlined by the wounds, showed that 

 it was only sV^-^V^ feet long, and other circumstantial evidence pointed to a Carcharhinus 

 maculfpinnis as responsible." Shark attacks appear to be similarly unusual throughout 

 the West Indian region in general ; although local inhabitants in Porto Rico and among 

 the Antilles have informed us that, while they would not hesitate to swim by day even if 

 sharks were about, it would be hazardous in the extreme to do so at night. 



Attacks occur from time to time, hov/ever, even to the northward along the Atlantic 

 coast, although sharks of the dangerous sorts are progressively less numerous in that direc- 

 tion. Near Charleston, South Carolina, for example, several well-attested cases have been 

 reported recently.^' More widely heralded was a series of attacks on six bathers on the 

 New Jersey coast in July 191 6, probably by a small Carcharodon (see p. 139) that was 

 caught nearby a few days later. More recent still was an attack in Buzzards Bay, Massa- 

 chusetts, July 26, 1936, on a bather who was so badly injured that he died shortly after- 

 ward in the New Bedford Hospital. The shark, about six feet long but not identified as to 

 species, was driven away by the victim's companions who came to his rescue in a boat. How- 

 ever, these last two instances are the only ones along our northeastern coast that have come 

 to our attention in a lifetime experience. Such events are certainly no more common along 

 the bathing beaches of the northern Mediterranean or of northwestern Europe, for we 

 have not found a single definite case of recent date recorded in the literature of sharks, in 

 natural history journals or in the press. It also happens that the few large sharks which 

 are at all common close along the shore north of Cape Hatteras on the one side of the 

 Atlantic, or of Portugal on the other," are either wholly innocuous, as is the Basking 

 Shark, or at least have never been proved guilty of attacks on bathers, whatever may be 



i+. The Augustine Friar, Sebastiao Manrique, in 1643, was an eyewitness to attacks by sharks on pilgrims wading 

 out into the sea at Hugli, in Bengal ; see translation by CoUis, The Land of the Great Image, 1943 : 76. 



I 5. This case was reported to us by Stewart Springer and was mentioned in the local press. The victim was treated 

 at the dispensary of a Naval Base near by. 



16. Burton, Sci. Mon., N. Y. 40, 1935 : 279. 



17. Sand Shark (Carc/mrias taurus) ; Basking Shark {Cetorhinus maximus) ; Tope (Galeor/iinus galeus) ; Common 

 Mackerel Shark or Porbeagle {Lamna riasus) ; Blue Shark {Prionace glauca) ; Brown Shark (Carc/iar/iinus mil- 

 berti) ; Dusky Shark (^Carcharhinus obscurus) . 



