72 COPEIA 



REMARKS ON SHARKS TAKEN IN 

 GREAT SOUTH BAY. 



During the past years the writer has made sev- 

 eral trips on Great South Bay, Long Island, from 

 Babylon with Mr. Edwin Thorne in pursuit of ground 

 sharks (Carcharhinus) . The most successful day's 

 hunting he has experienced was on July 27, 1916, 

 when five female Carcharhinus milberti from 6 ft. 

 1 in. to 6 ft. 11 in. in total length were taken. As 

 the five sharks lay together on deck some individual 

 variation was evident. One of them had a distinctly 

 long caudal, one was notably heavy, another, the most 

 aberrent of the five was slender. It differed from the 

 others slightly in color, the under surface of the pec- 

 toral terminally having an ill-defined dusky blotch, 

 rather than being shaded with the color of the upper 

 parts as in them. In the jaw of this specimen the 

 re-entrance in the lateral margin of the upper teeth 

 comes to a sharper apex. The dermal denticles under 

 the microscope are essentially the same, but with 

 ridges slightly less sharp. These differences are too 

 slight to be of specific value. All five had the pro- 

 portionate length of the dorsal and pectoral similar, 

 the dorsals in the predorsal length 1.6 to 1.7 times, 

 pectorals in the same 1.15 to 1.3. Second dorsal and 

 anal were of approximately the same size and nearly 

 apposed, the anal Aery slightly in advance in all but 

 one in which the second dorsal was slightly in ad- 

 vance. The anal was of the same form throughout, 

 bilobed, the anterior lobe rounded. In the water the 

 sharks looked brownish grey to my eye, although 

 their appearance varies considerably according to 

 whether they are seen against light or dark bottom, 

 on deck mostly grey- blue above. 



It is remarkable that whereas the female sharks 

 taken by Mr. Thorne have all been C. milberti, five 

 of the seven males taken in six years have been C. 

 obscurus. One of these was taken on August 3, 1916, 

 and examined by the writer on the following day. 



