294 Shark and Company 



ranges the North American Pacific coast from Alaska to California. This 

 species, or one or more very similar to it, is found in the Mediterranean, 

 off South Africa, in the Indian Ocean, and in the waters off Japan, China, 

 Australia, and New Zealand. This Seven-Gill has a varied reputation. It 

 appears frequently in San Francisco Bay, which seems to be a nursery 

 where females drop their pups. In this area, fishermen consider it a 

 nasty fish to handle, for it is pugnacious when caught. In South AustraUa, 

 it is considered a dangerous shark; in New Zealand, it is looked upon as 

 not dangerous. 



Family Carchariidae—SAND Sharks 

 No one knows what makes one shark dangerous to man and another 

 shark, though vaguely dreaded, not definitely indicted as a man-killer. 

 Very few of all recorded attacks can be unquestionably pinned on any 

 one species. So, for many attacks, the list of suspects is long, and after 

 the name of several sharks the prudent man puts a question mark. 



In this family, there are two species so closely related that distinc- 

 tions between them often are not made. Yet they prowl seas half a world 

 away from each other. One is known to have attacked bathers. The other, 

 endowed with similarly rapacious teeth and a heritage of voracity, is 

 only, to date at least, a suspect. 



Gray Nurse Shark (Carcharias arenarius Ogilby, 1911) 

 The Gray Nurse is probably the most inappropriately named shark 



of all. It is often brown rather than gray— and, despite its benevolent 



name, it is a menace whose toll of known victims is a long one. (The 



name Nurse is believed to come from an ancient word, nusse, which 



means "great fish.") 



In two of the most shark-infested nations of the world, Australia and 



South Africa, the Gray Nurse is dreaded as one of the most dangerous 



sharks in the sea. 



Dr. J. L. B. Smith, an authority on the sharks of South Africa, wrote 



of the Gray Nurse^: 



Probably most shallow water attacks in South Africa are due to this shark, 

 which also penetrates far up estuaries. The jaw of a ten-foot specimen would 

 easily sever a human head or thigh; those of the largest would easily cut a man 

 in half. 



The Gray Nurse grows to a length of at least 15 feet. Its teeth, which 

 fill its jaws row on row, are long, slender, and curved inward. After 

 seeing a Gray Nurse seize a fish. Smith wrote: 



2 J. L. B. Smith, The Sea Fishes of Southern Africa (Capetown: Central News 

 Agency, Ltd., 1953). 



