204 Fish Stories 



land, Norway, France, New England, Canada, California 

 and Japan. There is another huge shark of this sort, in the 

 warm seas, known as Rhineodon, which reaches 60 or 70 

 feet in length. 



Next in size to the basking shark, comes the great white 

 shark, or man-eater, boldest and baddest of all the fishes 

 of the sea. 



It is much like other sharks in appearance. Its teeth are 

 triangular, broad and saw-edged. It is found in all warm 

 seas, and it will swallow a man as cheerfully as an ordinary 

 shark would devour a rat. According to Linnaeus, and to 

 the early theologians generally, from whom Linnaeus got his 

 information, this was the creature which really swallowed 

 Jonah, and it might have done it, although the escape of 

 Jonah afterwards might have been puzzling. I have caught 

 but one of these fishes. It was about 32 feet long, and it 

 was taken off Soquel in Monterey Bay in 1880. It had a 

 sea lion pup whole in its stomach. The species reaches a 

 length of about 35 feet. It does not often stay along the 

 shore, the man-eaters of the bays being the cub shark, 

 and its kindred, beasts of half the length of the great white 

 shark. 



The man-eater of 36 feet long has teeth about an inch 

 long. In Eocene and Miocene times, sharks of this type 

 were very abundant, perhaps 120 feet long. At least, they 

 had very big teeth. 



Speaking of big fish, there is one other worth a moment's 

 notice, the huge manta, or sea-devil, of the tropical seas. 

 This is a huge sting ray without much of a sting, the body 

 as broad as long, and with two little fins at the end of his 

 head standing up like the horns of Mephistopheles in the 

 opera, or like wings on a woman's hat. This beast grows 

 to the width of twenty feet or more, and its power is 

 tremendous. If you harpoon it, it will tow your schooner 

 for miles, or run away with it altogether. It feeds on clams 

 and the like, but the pearl-divers believe that it eats men, 



