NATURAL HISTORY. 451 



had " stowed away," and the substances thus brought to light 

 have been most curious. The entire contents of a lady's 

 work-basket, down to the scissors, were found in the interior 

 of one shark, and another had actually swallowed an entire 

 bull's hide a circumstance which led the operating sailor to 

 remark that the shark had swallowed a bull, but could not 

 " disgest" the hide. 



The amphibious South Sea Islanders stand in great dread 

 of the Shark, and with good reason, for not a year elapses 

 without several falling victims to the rapacity of this terrific 

 animal. Nearly thirty of the natives of the Society Islands 

 were destroyed at one time by the sharks. A storm had so 

 injured the canoe in which they were passing from one island 

 to another, that they were forced to take refuge on a raft 

 hastily formed of the fragments of their canoe. Their weight 

 sunk the raft a foot or two below the surface of the water, 

 and, dreadful to say, the sharks surrounded them and dragged 

 them off the raft one by one, until the lightened . raft rose 

 above the water and preserved the few survivors. 



SPHYRXIAS. (Gr. from "Ztyvpa, a Hammer.) 



Zygasna (Gr. Zuycuva), the Hammer-headed Shark. 



The HAMMER-HEADED SHARK inhabits the same latitudes. 

 This curiously constructed fish closely resembles the white 

 shark in all respects but the head, which is widened out at 

 each side, exactly like a double.-headed hammer or mallet. 



