The Shadows Attack 17 



in a net, or gasping on the shore. And, under such circumstances, al- 

 most any creature will bite." 



Recalling the unclaimed $500 reward Herman Oelrichs had offered 

 for proof of a shark attack north of Cape Hatteras, Lucas concluded: 

 "That this reward was never claimed shows that there is practically no 

 danger of any attack from a shark about our coasts." 



In October, 1916, Nichols and Murphy were back in print again. In 

 a cautious understatement, thev noted that "the New Jersey accidents 

 of July, 1916," had brought "the whole shark question before us in a 

 new phase." After making the concession that four "living men" had 

 indeed been killed by sharks, they wrote: "It must be admitted that 

 deaths from shark bite within a short radius of New York City would 

 seem to be one of those unaccountable happenings that take place from 

 time to time to the confounding of savants and the justification of the 

 wildest tradition." 



After investigating the attacks and searching for clues to explain 

 them, Lucas, Nichols, and Murphy confirmed that an unusual number of 

 sharks had summered in New York-New Jersey waters. "The nearest 

 I can come to accounting for the sudden preying of these fish," Lucas 

 said, "is to say that this is a 'shark year.' " In line with this theory, 

 Nichols and Murphy wrote: 



"It is not impossible that this summer sharks really are with us in 

 unprecedented force, and that we are experiencing an extraordinary 

 shark migration, a movement comparable with the sporadic abundance 

 during certain years of army worms, or jelly fishes, or western grass- 

 hoppers, or northern lemmings— movements that all have their source 

 in overproduction and other little understood natural agencies." 



Further indication that 1916 was a "shark year" comes from the 

 records of a remarkable shark-watcher, Edwin Thorne, a member of 

 the Board of Managers of the New York Zoological Society. Thome's 

 hobby was not only shark-watching but also shark-catching. Between 

 the years 1911 and 1927, Thorne spent a total of 302 days looking for 

 sharks in Long Island's Great South Bay, then and now a popular bathing 

 and boating area. Great South Bay was also popular with sharks, Thorne 

 discovered. For, in those 17 years, he sighted 1,799 sharks and killed 

 305 of them. 



In 1916, he saw 277 sharks and killed 102. In no other year did he see 

 or kill as many . 



Nearly all the sharks Thorne killed were female Brown sharks 

 {Eulamia milberti, formerly Carcharinus milberti), which had entered 

 Great South Bay to spawn their litters of 6 to 13 young. (Like many 

 species of shark, the Brown shark brings forth young alive.) Great 

 South Bay was— and is— a "shark nursery," a sheltered spot where newly 



