INDISCRIMINATE APPETITE OF THE SHARK. 16^ 



The White Shark in particular, one of the largest of the 

 tribe, and frequently weighing as much as a thousand 

 pounds, sometimes measuring from twenty-five to thirty feet 

 in length, abounding in warm latitudes, and attacking every- 

 thing within his reach, deserves the title given to him of 

 *'the pirate of the ocean." When we relate that a lady's 

 work-box has been found in the stomach of one of these 

 sharks, and the papers of a ship that had been thrown over- 

 board : that the baskets, shavings, cordage, ducks, hens, and 

 buffalo-hides, etc., which had been thrown into the sea one 

 morning from Captain HalFs ship, the Alceste, were found in 

 the body of a captured monster shortly afterwards ; that in 

 another was discovered a tin canister, which, on being opened, 

 was found to be nearly filled with old coins, you will have 

 some idea of his indiscriminate appetite. He will devour 

 even those of his own species. An anecdote is related of a 

 Laplander capturing a shark, and fastening it to his canoe ; 

 he soon missed it, however, without an idea of how it had 

 happened. A short time afterwards he took another shark 

 of much larger size, in which, when opened he found the 

 shark he had lost. An officer states that when some mid- 

 shipmen had caught a shark, they pulled him into their boat, 

 cut open his stomach, and then sent him back into the water. 

 His body was instantly attacked by the sharks nearest to 

 him, and was torn in pieces. The experiment was repeated 

 with the same result. 



The tenacity of life in the shark family is something ex- 

 traordinary. The fish has been known to be active for 

 many hours in the sea after its head has been taken off. In- 

 stances have been known of a shark having taken a bait in 

 the depth of the sea, after its liver had been taken out for 

 the purpose of extracting oil, and also when the whole of 

 the entrails had been removed. 



But a far worse character attaches itself to the shark, 

 which is, his preference for human flesh : of all other food, 



