Shark Incidents at Eniwetok — Hobson, Mautin, and Reese 
607 
shaft was grasped, the fish struggled free. At 
the same instant a 6-ft. grey shark (Car char hinus 
menisorrah ) was upon Hobson, swimming at a 
slightly upward inclination directly at his face. 
The mouth of the shark was open, and move- 
ment of the jaws was distinctly recalled. Instinc- 
tively Hobson projected his right arm, catching 
the onrushing shark under the head. This, com- 
bined with a twisting, ducking motion, diverted 
the shark’s forward rush over Hobson’s left 
shoulder. The shark turned abruptly and circled 
so close that the spear which was still in the 
left hand could not be brought into play. As 
the shark circled, Hobson turned with it, push- 
ing it away several times with his open hand 
until the shark was circling at a distance of ap- 
proximately 4 ft.- — enough room to bring the 
spear into use. The blunt end, which happened 
to be the end toward the shark, was used as a 
prod, and after a few jabs the shark opened its 
circle to approximately 10 ft. The shark appeared 
to be rapidly losing its aggressiveness. It seemed 
that apprehension toward the diver was now 
displacing the attack response which had as- 
serted itself seconds before. As the boat ap- 
proached, the shark fled into the adjacent deep 
water. The entire incident lasted only a few 
seconds and took place entirely on the bottom. 
The shark was recognized by a deformation 
of the dorsal fin as one which had been involved 
in many of the behavior experiments conducted 
during the summer. It was, therefore, very fa- 
miliar with the sight of humans in the water. 
There had been no apparent hesitation involved 
in its attack. Presumably its approach was made 
from deep water, coming over the edge of the 
reef which was within 10 ft. of the attack site. 
An approach from any other direction would 
have been observed. 
Although the use of bare hands in warding 
off a shark has generally been discouraged ( Gil- 
bert et al., I960: 326), this was the only re- 
course in the present situation. The effectiveness 
of the hands in this case was no doubt largely 
due to the relatively small size of the shark. No 
lacerations of the hands occurred. 
Fig. 2. Carcharhmus menisorrah, the species which was involved in both incidents, is common in the la- 
goons of most Pacific atolls, attaining a length of about 7 ft. (Photo: E. Hobson.) 
