The Sharks— Part Two 325 



The summertime meanderings of the Brown shark take it into the 

 busiest harbor in the world— the bustling, sprawling 650 miles of naviga- 

 ble waterfront that is the Port of New York. The Brown shark also 

 enters the shallow waters of bays and river mouths. It is probably the 

 only sizable shark that regularly visits the small bays on the populous 

 north shore of Long Island. 



Its appearance in Great South Bay, on Long Island's south shore, and 

 in other sheltered waters around Long Island, seems to be inspired by 

 a habit of bringing forth its young in protected waters, rather than in 

 exposed ocean shore waters. In these shark nurseries, schools consist- 

 ing almost exclusively of female Brown sharks appear each summer. 

 Their young— about 8 to 12 in each litter— are born from June to 

 August in the Long Island bays. Births also apparently take place in 

 September in Chesapeake Bay, which may mark the southern boundary 

 of the Brown shark's maternity ward on the Atlantic coast during these 

 months. 



The pups grow into sharks that weigh about 100 pounds at 6 feet 

 and about 200 pounds at 7 to 8 feet. They are brownish gray or slate gray 

 above, shading to a pale tint of the same color or whitish below. 



The Brown shark inhabits the western Atlantic, from southern New 

 England to southern Florida and southern Brazil. It is found in the Gulf 

 of Mexico. 



The Gambuso shark (Carcharhinus azureus Gilbert and Starks, 1904) 

 of the Pacific also resembles the Brown shark enough to be a twin. The 

 Gambuso ranges from southern California to Ecuador. [The Pacific coast 

 also has another shark, colloquially known as the Brown shark, but it is a 

 completely different species of another family. This Brown shark (Apris- 

 turus brunneus Gilbert, 1891) is found from Alaska to southern Cali- 

 fornia. It grows to about 3 feet and is usually hauled up from very deep 

 water. One was caught in British Columbia's Howe Sound at 1,020 feet.] 



Brown shark (Eulamia [Carcharhinus] milberti). 



Courtesy, Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology 



