July, 1919 
FOREST AND STREAM 
383 
DANGEROUS SHARKS OF THE COAST 
(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 347) 
usual dark, staring eye of the man-eating 
sharks. I weigh 275 lbs. and have a 52- 
inch waist, yet I passed through its jaws, 
which I have nicely cleaned. This shark 
was not securely fastened in the net and 
was tearing its way out when I fastened 
it with a harpoon just in time, and a 
most savage fight followed. The parts 
of the tail stood more at an angle with 
the body than in the young, but the angle 
was not as pronounced as in the great 
white shark. 
‘•There can be little doubt that the 
tiger shark regularly preys on other 
sharks to a considerable extent. During 
the few weeks that I was watching the 
fishery at Cape Lookout I examined the 
stomachs of three young tiger sharks, 
and in all three I found cleanly bitten 
pieces of freshly eaten shark-meat with 
skin attached, just as if the chunk of 
meat had been cut from the side of a 
shark. In the largest example, 7ft. 9 in. 
in length, caught in my nets June 25th, 
there were eleven of these chunks of 
shark meat of from 1 to 5 lbs. each in 
weight, and they represented hammer- 
head, sharp-nosed, and ground sharks. 
“Additional observations made during 
the first week of August on three more 
tiger sharks, each in excess of twelve 
feet in length, confirm my former ob- 
servations as to the varied character of 
their food. In one of them I found a 
freshly-eaten logger-head turtle, approxi- 
mating 100 lbs. in weight, which had 
been bitten through both shells, in three 
places and the pieces of shell much 
crushed, yet all parts of the turtle were 
present. 
“Probably tiger sharks will use as 
food, when hungry, any creature which 
they find moving in the water, for which 
reason they must be dangerous as man- 
eaters; but I do not regard them as 
nearly so dangerous as a white shark 
which has once acquired the habit of eat- 
ing human flesh. While it is not fas- 
tidious, I have no evidence as yet that 
even the tiger shark will eat unclean 
food, and in my opinion, the sharks which 
eat garbage or putrid matter are ex- 
ceptional individuals, which, through 
some accident, have acquired the habit.” 
HAMMERHEAD SHARK 
u '"T'HERE is probably no fish as caro- 
ls ful about its diet as the shark, 
and those that eat anything but 
freshly caught fish are the exception and 
not the rule. Some species even subsist 
almost exclusively upon one species of 
fish, to such an extent that when a per- 
son is fishing for them with a hook bait- 
ed with a perfectly good fresh fish, he 
may see a shark nose the baited hook re- 
peatedly and leave it. I have had cer- 
tain sharks repeatedly reject in this 
manner several species of fish and then 
eagerly take the hook when baited with 
the species of fish which is their habitual 
food. This is especially true of the ham- 
merhead shark, which follows and sub- 
sists on the schools of Spanish mackerel, 
and of the very many which I have ex- 
amined the stomachs of, all but a small 
fraction contained, as far as I have 
identified no other substance than Span- 
ish mackerel. The exceptions were only 
very old examples, several of which had 
become solitary in habit and subsisted 
exclusively upon sting rays, which, as 
far as observed, were Dasyatis. Others, 
which were easily recognizable by their 
badly worn teeth, had become cannibalis- 
tic and confined their cannibalism to 
their own species. 
“One of the most interesting facts 
about the hammerhead shark is that 
some of the large females with non- 
functional uteri are abnormal in form 
and feeding habits. 
“I attribute this abnormal condition 
to great age. I have examined specimens 
over 14 ft. long, in every way normal and 
with functional uteri, which I do not 
consider so old. 
“I believe that certain examples of 
hammerhead shark of great age become 
cannibalistic, by evidence afforded by a 
number of examples, but I have no evi- 
dence that such is the case before their 
length exceeds 10 ft., and I have proba- 
bly examined a thousand examples. 
“A specimen of 13 ft. 10 in. illustrates 
the change of form accompanying this 
change of habit. This example is ab- 
normal in point of stoutness, for, to have 
been normal with this circumference, 
length of fins and very great weight, the 
width of head should have exceeded 5 ft. 
and the length of body should have ex- 
ceeded 16 ft. The mouth and teeth were 
also abnormally large for this short 
length. It is probable that within . . . 
two weeks this large shark had eaten 
from my nets more than 50 sharks of 
about 6 ft. in length, leaving only their 
heads gilled in the net; and, with at least 
half a dozen species to select from, it 
was always her own species which she 
selected. At the time of her capture she 
had just eaten four of her species from 
my net, two of which had been swallowed 
v;hole, except the head of 5 ft. examples, 
and there were four cleanly-cut pieces 
which represented entire bodies, except 
heads, of two more 6 ft. hammerhead 
sharks; then the stomach contained more 
than a peck of vertebrae of sharks, pro- 
visionally identified as her own species. 
“The uteri of this specimen were 
small, malformed, almost obsolete, and 
non-functional. From evidence obtained 
by examination of the uteri of many very 
old female sharks, I am of the opinion 
that after they have reached very ad- 
vanced age, their reproductive organs 
cease to be functional. . . . 
“Size of young in sharks depends on 
size of mother. I have often caught 
sharks of this species, long after their 
birth, measuring less than 20 inches, in- 
dicating a small mother, and I have 
found larger embryos not so far ad- 
vanced in a larger mother.” 
PREVENTING FOREST FIRES 
N ever build your camp fire against a 
rotten log. 
Clear away all burnable material before 
building a camp fire. 
A small camp fire is better than a large 
one and easier to control. 
A neglected camp fire is as dangerous as 
one maliciously set. 
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WILD DUCK ATTRACTIONS 
WILD DUCK FOODS THAT ATTRACT THE 
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