182 THE NATURALIST IN BERMUDA. 



I was never so fortunate as to examine one (the mackerel 

 porbeagle excepted), and therefore remain in ignorance as to 

 the species. I have a tooth in my possession taken from a 

 large shark, which, with many others, followed a dead whale 

 into a small bay on the south shore, where the whalers towed 

 it for the purpose oi flinching. "When attacked with har- 

 poons, this shark seized the bottom of the boat with its 

 capacious jaws, and left two or three of its teeth in the wood- 

 work. The jaws were presented to the Bermuda Museum, 

 but having been improperly prepared, became so offensive as 

 to cause them to be thrown away. The teeth were as sharp 

 as lancets, literally so, when first brought in. 



On the 1st June, 1849, a sperm whale drifted ashore to 

 the south of the Light-house, supposed to have been killed 

 and lost by the crew of an American whaler then cruiziug 

 off the Islands. One side of this whale was almost entirely 

 consumed by sharks, there being about fifty of these vora- 

 cious animals about the carcass. One of them was kiUed, 

 and measured seven feet in length; two buckets full of 

 blubber, and a portion of a green turtle were taken from its 

 stomach. 



Again, on the 27th September following, a coloured man 

 called at my house with the backbone of a large shark for 

 sale. He stated that the shark was kiUed "away m the 

 deeps" from a small row-boat, a few days previously ; not 

 with hook and line, but by running a noose over its tail, 

 and towing the animal to the shore, when it was found to 

 have "drowned itself." My informant assured me that it 

 measured nine feet in length, and that he sold the jaws, coU- 

 taioing six rows of teeth, to an officer at the dockyard. 

 Judging from the vertebrae I saw, I do not think the length 



