COPEIA 71 



44 females. The young when born are about 22 

 inches long and weigh 2Y2 lbs. 



On one occasion when a female shark was sus- 

 pended by the tail, three young dropped from her 

 mouth one at a time, and swam off apparently unhurt. 

 This is the only incident of the kind I have known. 

 The same fish contained several unborn young. 

 Young are sometimes born on deck, tail first, after 

 the mother has been caught. 



The principal diet of the sharks I have examined 

 has been various bottom fish and an occasional weak 

 fish, dog fish, eel or crab. Flat-fish very largely pre- 

 dominate. I have never found what could be identi- 

 fied as a blue fish, nor have I ever found anything 

 except what is mentioned above in a shark's stomach, 

 except two fish hooks with the snells attached, neither 

 of which was imbedded and which were probably fast 

 to some smaller fish which the shark had swallowed. 



The greatest number of sharks I have ever taken 

 on any one day was 17 on August 3d, 190.5. Some of 

 these, however, were Sand Sharks. On August 11th, 

 1906, fourteen Brown Sharks were taken. The 

 greatest number seen in one day of which I have a 

 record was 82, on August 14th, 1916, and of these 

 42 were in sight at one time. These were all seen in 

 the morning before noon. On a previous occasion 

 when I kept no record, my captain at the mast head 

 said he thought he saw during the day, over three 

 hundred. I would say a conservative estimate was 

 two hundred as they were much more plentiful on 

 that day than on the day that 82 were seen. They 

 were so thick at times that it would have been impos- 

 sible to count them with any degree of accuracy. 



I have killed approximately as many on the ebb 

 tide as on the flood. 



Edwin Thorne, 



Babylon, N. Y. 



