SHARKS — MA X-EA TERS A XD TIIERS 



?A'i 



been reported, but recently the species is 

 rare in our waters. Its rlis})osition is 

 peacel'ul, and it is dan<>erous only ])ecause 

 of its great bulk. When attacked, its 

 powerful tail easily demolishes boats, 

 and its pursuit has been attended i)y 

 considerable excitement and risk. 



The thrasher or swingle-tail {I'ulijcciihi 

 viarina Valmont) is another large and 

 acti\e pelagic shark which is common 

 along the coasts of New England and 

 western and southern Europe, and is 

 known also from California. It is at 

 once distingiushed from all other sharks 

 by its prodigious tail (see page 354), 

 the upper lobe of which, in the form of 

 a scythe blade, is half the total length 

 of the fish. The fishermen tell tales of 

 the ferocity of this shark in attacking 

 whales, which, when they come to the 

 surface to breathe, are said to be flailed 

 by the thrasher's flexible tail, so that the 

 resounding whacks may be heard for 

 several miles in calm weather. Authen- 

 tic observations of this habit are lacking. 

 The species is certainly harmless for 

 man, in spite of its large size — it attains 

 a length of fifteen feet and a weight of 

 five hundred pounds. It is a source of 

 some annoyance to our mackerel fisher- 

 men because it often becomes entangled 

 in the nets. In July, 1904, an imperfect 

 skeleton of this fish about ten and one- 

 half feet long, with cranium and two 

 hundred and seventy-four \ertebrte, w^as 

 exhibited at Atlantic City, as that of a 

 "sea serpent," and an impossible ac- 

 count of its capture was pulilished in the 

 local newspapers at the time.^ 



In strong contrast with the striking 

 modification of the tail in the foregoing 

 species, the hammer-head and the 

 bonnet-head sharks [Sphi/rna zygoena 

 (Linnaeus) and S. iiburo (Linnteus)], 

 present grotesque lateral expansions of 



1 For identity of this skeleton, see note by the writer 

 in Forest and Stream, December 3, 1904. 



the head. Both species range from the 

 tropics along our east coast as far as 

 ]\Iassachusetts. The former is a \ora- 

 cious species and, attaining a length of 

 more than fifteen feet, is formidable to 

 man; the latter, much the commoner 

 on oiu" South Atlantic coast, rarely 

 exceeds five feet in length. Mitchill's 

 Fishes of Xcw York records the capture 

 of three hammer-heads in a net at River- 

 head, New York, September, 1805; the 

 largest, eleven feet long, contained the 

 detached remains of a man and also a 

 striped cotton shirt. 



The sand shark [Carcharias taunts 

 (Miiller & Henle)] is one of the best- 

 known sharks of our Atlantic coast. It 

 is sometimes called "shovel-nose shark" 

 and "dogfish shark" on the shores of 

 New England. Its usual length is under 

 five feet, but it is said, perhaps on ac- 

 count of error in identification, to attain 

 a length of twelve feet and a weight of 

 two hundred and fifty pounds. It is 

 built on rakish lines, its snout is sharp, 

 its crescentic mouth is armed with long 

 and narrow teeth, the fishermen say it 

 has a wicked eye, and its disposition is 

 vicious. It is able to do very serious 

 injury to careless fishermen who are 

 trying to remove it from their nets or 

 boats, and the writer has seen it inflict 

 fearful wounds on other species of sharks 

 confined with it in the observation pool 

 at Woods Hole, Massachusetts. 



The largest family of sharks in our 

 waters is the Carcharinidte.^ The man.y 



1 Our commoner species are the sharp-nosed shark, 

 ScoUodon terrae-noiiae (Richardson), ranging from 

 Massachusetts southward, numerous on the South 

 Atlantic coast, and reaching a length of seven feet; 

 Aprionodon isodon (Miiller & Henle), originally de- 

 scribed from New York and now known from North 

 Carolina and various other places on the shores of the 

 western Atlantic; Hypoprion brevirostris Poey, re- 

 ported by Radcliffe as fairly common on the North 

 Carolina coast, the largest individual taken being over 

 eight feet long; Carcharhinus plaiyodon (Poey), a com- 

 mon form in the Gulf of Mexico and throughout the 

 West Indies, attaining a length of ten to twelve feet; 



