72 CHAPTERS ON THE NATURAL HISTORY 



history. In the phosphate beds of South Carolina, for example, 

 are found fossil teeth of sharks that must have belonged to speci- 

 mens having length ranging as high as eighty or more feet. 

 Sharks of this size would have no trouble in swallowing a horse 

 entire, and probably his rider along w r ith it. In 1864 I was bath- 

 ing upon Egmont Cay, Florida, when I nearly lost my life from 

 the voracious attack of a huge shark, that was attracted to the 

 place by the barking of a little dog that belonged to a compan- 

 ion, who was in the water with him at the same time. While 

 sailing in the Gulf of Mexico I have seen these great sharks 

 about the ship for days, and when the sailors would occasion- 

 ally catch one, the contents of the stomach of the creature were 

 often most extraordinary. I have an account before me wherein 

 it says, " in one case the contents of a lady's work-basket, even 

 including the scissors, were found," and in another an entire 

 bull's hide. Upon the latter a sailor remarked that the fish had 

 swallowed a bull, but could not digest the hide. Another writer 

 says, " I was holding the heavy hook and wire rope over the side, 

 when I felt that I had caught a big fish, and pulling it cautiously, 

 a shark came to the surface. I called out for help. He struggled 

 so violently, lashing the water with his tail and trying to bite 

 the hook asunder, that we were obliged to keep dipping his head 

 under water and then haul him up two or three feet to let it run 

 down his throat. At last he was nearly drowned, when, sending 

 a running bow-line down the rope by which he was caught, and 

 making it taut under his back fin, we clapped the line around the 

 windlass and turned. Some then hauled his tail up, while all 

 available hands dragged at the other line, which held his head. 

 As soon as we got him on board, he broke off about three feet of 

 the .ship's bulwarks by a single lash of his tremendous tail. This 

 was then cut off by the boatswain with a hatchet, while a dozen 

 of us with bowie-knives finished him.. We found in his stomach 

 six large snakes, two empty quart bottles, two dozen lobsters, a 

 sheepskin and horns, and the shank-bones, which the cook had 

 thrown overboard two days before. The liver filled two large 

 washdeck tubs, and when tried out gave us ten gallons of oil." 

 The Tiger Shark, and also the great Blue Shark (Carcliarias ijlnu- 

 cus), are also very voracious and particularly dangerous species. 

 I shall never forget something I once saw from the deck of a 

 man-of-war lying in Key West harbor, Florida. The water was 

 very blue, and one could see down into it only a little way. All 



