THE SHAEKS OP THE PACIFIC COAST. 675 



The Nurse Shark or Sleeper — Somniosus microcephalus. 



This species, also called by our fishermen the "Gurry" or "Ground" Shark, is a native of 

 the Arctic Seas, but on our coast ranges south to Cape Cod, and in the Eastern Atlantic at least 

 to England, while in the Pacific it has been observed from Puget Sound northward. The name 

 "Gurry Shark" refers to its habit of feeding upon the refuse fish thrown overboard from the 

 vessels. 



This species is occasionally observed in Massachusetts Bay, especially when the carcasses of 

 ■whales are floating about. Scoresby writes, in his work on the Arctic Regions: "This Sharlc is 

 one of the foes of the whale ; it bites it and annoys it when alive and feeds on it when dead. It 

 scoops hemispherical pieces out of its body nearly as big as a person's head, and keeps scooping 

 and gorging lump after lump until the whole cavity of its belly is fall. It is so insensible of pain 

 that, though it has been run through the body with a scythe-knife, yet I have seen it return to its 

 banquet upon the whale at the very spot where it received its wound. Besides feeding upon 

 whales, these Sharks also eat small fishes and crabs. The sailors imagine that it is blind because 

 it pays not the least attention to the presence of a man, and is, indeed, so apparently stupid that 

 it never draws back when a blow is aimed at it with a knife or lance." 



Captain Atwood writes : " We don't see them very often about Provincetown, but sometimes 

 they are seen in the bay. They would eat a whale if one were sunk there, and they eat halibut 

 ofl:' the trawl. I have hauled up halibut and like enough the back would be all eaten off. Some 

 of them are quite large. Eobert E. Smith, of Barnstable, got one about fifteen feet long, half of 

 whose liver filled a barrel. I don't know of their having been taken here for a good many years. 

 The liver furnishes five or six gallons of oil ; in one case a single half lobe filled a flour-barrel 

 and yielded fifteen gallons of oil." ^ 



201. THE SHARKS OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 



By Datid S. Jordan. 



The following is a list of the Sharks known from the Pacific coast. Of these, the three very 

 large species, Getorhinus maximus, Garcharodon careharias, and Somniosus microcephalus, are valued 

 for the oil in their livers, but are captured rather by accident, by whalers and fishermen, than by 

 design. They are never made objects of pursuit. The Sharks Squalus acanthias, GaleorMnus 

 zyopterus, and Heptranehias maculatus are regular objects of pursuit for their oil, and in the case of 

 GaleorMnus zyopterus for their fins also. The young of several other species are dried by the 

 Chinese, who utilize everything which their brethren on the railroads will eat. Others are used as 

 craw-fish bait, and for similar purposes. 



List op Sharks of the Pacific Coast. 



Squatina a/ngelVjS Dum6ril. Angel-fish, Angelo or Squat. Prom San Francisco southward, 'Sot- 



rare. 

 Heptranehias maculatus (Ayres) Grd. Shovel-nosed Shark. Monterey northward. 



'A large winter Shark was driven ashore in the storm of the 20th instant at Cotuit Port. It was fifteen foot in 

 length, and his liver made fifteen gallons of oil. — Gloucester Telegraph, February 2, 1850. 



The schooner "Cosmos,'' of Swampscot, landed a formidable Nursefish at Portsmouth recently. It measured 

 sixteen feet in length and weighed about twenty-five hundred pounds, and was caught on a common trawl line. — 

 Cape Ann Advertiser, March 11, 1881. 



