THE SHARK. 



Means employed to take him. 



Mr. Pennant observes, that the female is 

 larger than the male in this tribe ; a ciscumstance 

 strongly characteristic of their nature, and form- 

 ing a striking agreement between them and birds 

 of prey. With respect to the fecundity of these 

 animals, Belonius says, that he saw a female 

 shark produce eleven live young ones at a time. 



Among its singularities may be reckoned its 

 enmity to man, or rather its love of human flesh; 

 -which when it has once tasted, it never desists 

 from haunting those places where it expects the 

 return of the prey ; along the coasts of Africa, 

 where these animals are found in great abun- 

 dance, numbers of the negroes, who, for various 

 purposes, are obliged to frequent these waters, 

 are seized and devoured by them every year; 

 and it is added, that they manifest a preference 

 to the flesh of the black men. But though the 

 shark may be called a common enemy, he has 

 no opposition but from the human race, who 

 have contrived different methods to destroy him. 

 He often falls, however, a victim to his own ra- 

 pacity, by means of the stratagems employed to 

 take him; the metliod of doing which, with our 

 English sailors, is to bait a large hook with a 

 piece of pork, which is thrown into the sea by 

 a strong cord, strengthened near the hook by an 

 iron chain. Without this precaution the shark 

 would quickly bite the cord in two, and set him- 

 self at liberty. The struggle with temptation, 

 S-en when this voracious animal is not pressed 



