348 



THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



Fnirn photo by W. W. Welsh 



This ten-fool, hammer-hoad "^shark was caught off Cape' May, New 

 Jersey, in Augusl, liJlG, by llic United States Fishery schooner "Gram- 

 pus." It appeared wli<'n one of liie crew was swimming near the vessel 

 and took a hastily hailed hook as soon as one was jiut overboard. 

 When caught with rod and Mne the hammer-head is said to be one of the 

 gamest of siiarks, continuing to struggle violenlly until it dies from 

 exhaustion. This shark probably breeds in the neighborhood of New 

 York, as a very small one has been found on the Long Island shore, 

 and most of the specimens captured in the north are not full grown 



genera however are not al- 

 ways easily distinguishable 

 until the teeth and dermal 

 denticles are carefully ex- 

 amined (see page 350). 



Two of the most inter- 

 esting are the blue shark 

 {Galcus glaucus Valmont), 

 a world-wide species attain- 

 ing a moderate size, charac- 

 terized l)y the very dark blue 

 color of the apper parts ; and 

 the tiger shark, or leopard 

 shark {Galeoccrdo arcticus 

 Faber), an active, graceful, 

 ferocious species, with razor- 

 like teeth. The latter is 

 known from Pro\'incetown, 

 Woods Hole, and other 

 places on the Atlantic coast.^ 



the black-finned shark, C. limhalus 

 (Miiller & Henle), of almost cosmo- 

 politan distribution in tropical waters, 

 known from our coast since 1875 

 when specimens were taken at Woods 

 Hole, where also a five-foot individual 

 was observed by the writer in July, 

 191G; the cub shark, C. lamia (Risso), 

 a common form on our southeast 

 coast, represented in the American 

 Museum of Natural History by a 

 model of a specimen taken at Key 

 West, an individual taken with rod 

 and line in North Carolina in 1902 

 having bean over nine feet long and 

 five feet in girth; the dusky shark, 

 C. obscurus (Lesueur), a very numer- 

 ous species in southern Massachusetts 

 in summer, common along the middle 

 Atlantic coast, frequently taken with 

 lines and nets, attaining a length of 

 fourteen feet; the brown shark, C. 

 milberli (Miiller & Henle), often con- 

 fused with several other species, not 

 rare on the Atlantic coast from Cape 

 Cod southward; and C. acronoius 

 (Poey), a Cuban form of which a 

 number of specimens were recently 

 taken in North Carolina. 



> The following interesting account 

 of captures in North Carohna is given 

 by Radcliffe (The Sharks and Rays 

 of Beaufort, North Carolina, 1916.): 

 I On August 8, 1914, a small school 

 of large tiger sharks appeared in the 

 Fort Macon Channel near the fish- 

 eries laboratory and swam around the 

 "Fish Hawk." A baited shark hook 



