346 
FOREST AND STREAM 
July, 1919 
DANGEROUS SHARKS OF THE COAST 
NOTES ON THE WHITE SHARK. TIGER SHARK AND HAMMERHEAD-THREE IMPORTANT 
SPECIES WHICH RANGE ALONG THE COAST AND ARE CREDITED WITH ATTACKING MAN 
T his is the shark season along^ the 
northeastern coast of the United 
States. In July, as a rule, the van- 
guard of a great shark migration, which 
continues until September or later, passes 
along our shores, and several species 
come into shallow waters for the purpose 
of bearing their young. Ground sharks 
(genus carcharhinus) are particularly 
abundant in such enclosed waters as 
Great South Bay, Long Island, but there 
should be nothing alarming in this state- 
ment for such sharks as these, even 
though they attain considerable size, have 
never been known to molest human be- 
ings. 
In spite of the horrifying deaths from 
shark bite near New York in 1916, the 
likelihood of such incidents occurring 
anywhere north of Cape Hatteras is still 
extremely remote. A careful study of 
the shark situation made in 1916 by Mr. 
J. T. Nichols, of the American Museum 
of Natural History, and Mr. R. C. Mur- 
phy, of the Brooklyn Museum {Brooklyn 
Museum Quarterly, October, 1916), 
brought out evidence to show that a 
similar attack had not occurred since 
1805, or for more than a hundred years. 
The investigation showed, moreover, that 
the deaths of 1916 had very probably 
been caused by a single young man-eater 
shark which was captured in New York 
Bay by Mr. Michael Schliesser, on July 
14, 1916. It is rather ironical that this 
particular shark received very little 
newspaper notoriety, whereas every 
harmless ground and sand shark taken 
anywhere near New York during the 
whole summer figured in the press as a 
“man-eating monster” and had its photo- 
graph published for a rogues gallery. 
The great development in the indus- 
trial utilization of 
sharks for leather, 
food, oil, and fer- 
tilizer, has bene- 
fited the cause of 
science in leading 
to intensive studies 
of these fishes. No 
investigator has 
had more experi- 
ence in capturing 
and handling the 
larger species in 
the field than Dr. 
Russell J. Coles of 
Danville, Va., who 
publishes in the 
current number of 
Copeia, the journal 
of the American 
Society of Ichthy- 
HE Natural History Depart- 
ment has been for nearly half 
a century a clearing-house for in- 
formation of interest to all. Our 
readers are invited to send any 
questions that come under the head 
of this department to Robert Cush- 
man Murphy, in care of Forest 
AND Stream. Mr. Murphy, who is 
Curator of the Department of Na- 
tural Science in the Brooklyn 
Museum, will answer through these 
columns. — [Editors.] 
ologists and Herpetologists, some very 
interesting notes on the three most dan- 
gerous sharks found along the Atlantic 
coast. Dr. Coles is a famous hunter of 
the big game of the sea, and will be re- 
membered particularly as the host and 
preceptor of Colonel Theodore Roosevelt 
on the the successful devilfish hunt in 
the Gulf of Mexico in the spring of 1917. 
A portion of his original notes on the 
white shark, tiger shark, and hammer- 
head, follows: 
“In May, June and July, 1918, at Cape 
Lookout, North Carolina, I handled large 
numbers of sharks of many kinds for 
leather, food, oil and fertilizer, having 
established a shark-fishing station at 
that point now controlled by the Ocean 
Leather Company of New York, with 
which I am associated. The work was 
so intensive that it was impossible to 
make the scientific study of the material 
that I would have wished. It is perhaps 
true that sharks are well known in in- 
verse ratio to their size, and my observa- 
tions on those three species which attain 
the greatest dimensions are here given: 
white shark or man-eater 
66'-p HIS species is so rare along the 
^ Atlantic Coast that when I cap- 
tured a young specimen 6 ft. 2 in. 
in total length at Cape Lookout in May 
I at once made careful measurements of 
it. It was a male. . . . Shortly there- 
after. about May 20th, I took a young 
female of the same species, and made 
measurements also of this specimen. . . . 
In color the flesh was distinct rich, light 
pink salmon (I have never seen the flesh 
of any other shark so colored) except 
that extending along in the pink flesh 
on each side of the vertebral column, 
from skull to just above vent, there was 
an almost round strip of nearly black 
flesh. Both pink and black flesh were 
eaten and proved excellent. Usually the 
flesh of sharks is almost free of oil, but 
that of this fish was rich in oil. and its 
liver the richest in oil of any that I have 
ever seen. It was the very finest shark, 
or, in fact, fish of any kind that I have 
ever eaten, its flavor being quite similar 
to a big, fat white shad. I made an en- 
tire meal of man-eater shark, eating 
nearly two pounds for dinner. 
“A day later, the morning catch of 
14 sharks included two more young man- 
eaters, both females, one 7 ft. 7 in. long, 
and one 7 ft. 3 in. long, and I made all 
measurements and observations to check 
and confirm absolutely my notes regard- 
ing the one taken on the previous day. 
“At the very time when the second 
young man-eater was captured, fisher- 
men claim to have seen a very large 
shark, with similar lamnoid tail, as long 
as their 25-ft. launch, entangled in a 
nearby net. It fought very violently and 
they cut it loose. I did not give their 
report entire credence, allowing for pos- 
sible exaggeration, 
until on June 28 I 
found a large, 
white shark in a 
dying condition in 
one of the nets, 
which may well 
have been the same 
individual. Unfor- 
tunately it escaped 
in its death-strug- 
gle. 
“ My carefully 
noted obseiwations 
justify the follow- 
ing claim of dimen- 
sions for it: length, 
22 ft.; head, larger 
than 50-gallon bar- 
rel; mouth, 3 feet 
wide; circumfer- 
Photograph of a young example of Tiger Shark harpooned by Dr. Russell J. Coles, 
of Danville, Virginia. The picture shows the spots or stripes which give this for- 
midable fish its name. 
