010 
THE OCEAN WORLD. 
some travellers, when several varieties of human food comes in its waj', 
the shark prefers the European to the Asiatic, and both to the negro. 
Still, whatever may he the colour, he seeks eagerly for human flesh, 
and haunts the neighbourhood where it hopes to find the precious 
morsel. He follows the ship in which his instinct tells him it is to 
be found, and makes extraordinary efforts to reach it. He has been 
known to leap into a boat in order to seize the frightened fishermen ; 
he throws himself upon the ship, cleaving the waves at full speed to 
snap up some unhappy sailor who has shown himself beyond the 
bulwarks. He follows the course of the slaver, watching for the 
horrors of the middle passage, ready to engulf the negroes’ corpses as 
they are thrown into the sea. Commerson relates a significant fact 
bearing on the subject. The corpse of a negro had been suspended 
from a yard-arm twenty feet above the level of the sea, A shark 
was seen to make many efforts to reach the body, and it finally 
succeeded in seizing it, member by member, undisturbed by the cries 
of the horror-stricken crew assembled on deck to witness the strange 
spectacle. In order that an animal so large and heavy should be able 
to throw itself to this height, the muscles of the tail and posterior 
parts of the body must have an astonishing power. 
The mouth of the shark being placed in the lower part of the head, 
it becomes necessary to turn itself round in the water before it can 
seize the object which is placed above him. He meets with men bold 
enough to profit by this conformation, and chase this formidable and 
ferocious creature. On the African coast the negroes attack the shark 
m his own element, swimming towards him, and seizing the moment 
when he tons himself to rip up his belly with a sharp knife. This 
act of courage and audacity cannot, however, be said to be shark-fishing. 
The fishing operation is conducted as follows : — Choosing a dark night, 
a hook is prepared by burying it in a piece of lard, and attaching it 
to a long and solid wire chain : the shark looks askance at this prey, 
feels it, then leaves it ; he is tempted by withdrawing the bait, when 
he follows, and swallows it gluttonously. He now tries to sink into 
the water, but, checked by the chain, he struggles and fights. By-and- 
hy he gets exhausted, and the chain is drawn up in such a manner as to 
raise the head out of the water. Another cord is now thrown out 
with a running knot or loop, in which the body of the shark is caught 
about the origin of the tail. Thus hound, the captured shark is soon 
