The Sharks-Part One 313 



was able to examine it, buy its skin for £6, and forward it to the Museum 

 National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris. 



Dr. Smith's Whale shark was a small one, a mere 15-footer. In the 

 years to come, more Whale sharks would be caught, and man would 

 learn much about them. But the immensity of the Whale shark will al- 

 ways awe man. Whale sharks have been measured at 45 feet, and 60- 

 footers have been creditably reported. In 1912, a Whale shark nearly 

 40 feet long and weighing about 1 3 % tons was caught off Knight's Key, 

 Florida. An enterprising promoter skinned it and stuffed it— a job that 

 took several months— and then toured the country with it, billing it as 

 "The Only Creature of the Kind in the World." 



The Whale shark is still a good drawing card. More than 100,000 

 persons thronged to a beach in Mangalore, India, in 1959, when a 

 Whale shark 32 feet long was landed after taking 16 men on a fantastic 

 ride. The huge fish was encountered in the Arabian Sea by a party of 

 fishermen who were learning modern fishing techniques from G. S. 

 Illugason of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. 



The Whale shark happened along in the middle of a class on how 

 to catch small fish. Illugason, his two assistants, and 13 Indian fishermen 

 were in two steel-hulled boats, one 32 feet long and the other 27 feet 

 long. When the Whale shark was spotted, classes were temporarily sus- 

 pended and Illugason decided to try for it with the only available 

 equipment— an unbarbed 2V2-foot iron hook and 2-inch manila line. Il- 

 lugason reported: 



We sailed alongside while I waited for a chance to jab the hook through the 

 fin. Our chance came when the shark tried to swim under our boat. I got the 

 hook through the dorsal fin. And now started a fantastic sailing trip. Our two 

 steel boats were secured together by a rope. Both our engines were stopped. 

 Yet the shark towed both boats at a speed of five knots. 



The Whale shark (Rhincodon typus). 



Courtesy, The Sears Foundation for Marine Research from 

 Fishes of the Western North Atlantic by Henry B. Bigelow and William C. Schroeder, 1948 



