SHARK FISHIXG. 



161 



to be too precipitate, and jerk away the hook before it has got far enough into the 

 shark's stomach. The secret of the sport is to let the monster gulp down the whole bait, 

 and then to give the line a violent pull, by which the barbed point buries itself in the 

 coat of the stomach. When the hook is first fixed it spins out like the log-line of a 

 ship going twelve knots. 



"The suddenness of the jerk with which the shark is brought up often turns him 

 quite over. No sailor, however, thinks of hauling one on board merely by the rope 

 -i'astened to the hook. To prevent the line breaking, the hook snapping, or the jaw being 

 torn away, a running bowline is adopted. This noose is slipped down the rope and passed 

 >over the monster's head, and is made to join at the point of junction of the tail with 

 'the body ; and now the first part of the f un is held to be completed. The vanquished 

 -enemy is easily drawn up over the taffrail, and flung on deck, to the delight of the crew." 

 Even then he is sometimes a very 

 'formidable enemy. The flesh of the 

 shark, though sometimes eaten, is coarse 

 and leathery. 



On several of the smaller islands of 

 'the Spanish Main whaling stations are 

 -established. After the huge fish have 

 been captured, they are towed by the 

 'boats to one of these stations, and the 

 blubber is stripped off and carried on 



THE COMMON SHARK (CarcJiarids vulgaris). 



.shore to the boiling-house in large white 



blocks, where a simple apparatus is set up 



.for " trying-out" the oil. It sometimes happens that immediately after the whale has been 



.killed the sharks surround it in such numbers, and devour the blubber with such rapacity, 



that if the distance be great and the currents adverse, the greater part has been eaten off 



before the whale can be towed ashore ; and the labour of the fishermen is thus thrown away. 



The tiger-shark is a more formidable monster than others of its tribe, because of its 

 power of seizing its prey without turning on its back or side. It is enabled to do this 

 from the great size of its mouth, and from its position, which is near the end of the 

 snout, instead of underneath, as in other varieties of the shark. 



"As soon as the carcase of the whale has been stripped of its blubber, it is towed 

 out at high water to a sufficient distance from the station to ensure of its being carried 

 away by the falling tide. This is necessary, for the stench from so large a mass of 

 putrefying flesh, exposed as it has been to the intense action of a tropical sun for three 

 or four days, is more than unpleasant. 



"Now is the opportunity for the shark-hunters. They take possession of the 

 remains, tow them to some convenient nook of the Bocas, as the channels between the 

 islands are called, and there anchor them. All is now prepared, and nothing remains 

 but eagerly and silently to watch for the assembly of the ravenous brutes to their 

 midnight orgies." 



The liver of the shark yields a most valuable oil, largely used in the colony as a 

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