NICHOLS & :\irRPHV : LONG ISLAND SHARKS. tt 
yellow from outpouring blood, the scrambling sharks would make the sea 
a living mass as each fish tried to bur\- its teeth in the exposed surfaces 
of dark red muscle. Now and then a shark would flounder right out on 
to]) of the whale, and cling there until a descending " blubber-s])ade " had 
])ut an end to all its ambitions. If the " cutting in " of a whale was at 
any time deferred several hours, owing to a continued hunt, the sharks 
would .seemingly become inijiatient ; the>' would then attack the carcass, 
and, thru.sting their heads i)artl>' above the surface, would bite large 
mouthfuls out of the blubber, leaving the black sides of the whale i)itted 
with clean white ".scoo]xs." .Sometimes these bites were so numerous 
that they mu.st ha\e rejire-sented a con.siderable lo.ss of blubber to the 
whalemen. 
Sharks are con.sidered by .sailors to be fair quarrx" upon which to 
l)ractice all the barbari.sm of ingenious human nature : indeed it is 
doubtful whether there be any creature that the a\erage human being 
takes more pleasure in destro\ing. Blue sharks are sometimes caught 
at .sea on hooks baited with i)ork. The\- usually prove, however, rather 
sh\' and war\- with regard to fishhooks, often refusing for hours to be 
tem])ted, but then, as if making a sudden resolve, rushing upon the bait 
and swallowing it. We have .seen one hooked, .shot full of lead from a 
re])eating rifle, then har])ooned, hatiled on deck, and disemlxnveled, \et it 
continued alive and alert for a long while, thrashing its tail and o])ening 
and shutting its weird, ex])re.ssionless eyes by moving the whitish lower 
lids. Fortunately sharks have little su.sceptibility to pain. A blue shark 
horribly mutilated b\' rej^eated thru.sts of a whaleman's blubber spade, 
w^as .seen to return immediately to the whale ui>on which it had been 
feeding and to continue ravenousl\- until it ])racticall\ died in the act, 
and sank slowly into the dark de])ths of the .sea. 
The food of the blue shark doubtle.ss includes a wide variet\' of 
animals, living or dead. One of the writers once .saw a wounded l)oob>' 
(Su/a) engulfed within the jaws of a shark which was most likelx' of this 
species. During rough weather the blue shark takes to dee]) water, or, 
if in the vicinity of land, to the bottom, where it devours mollusks and 
the like. Whelks it swallows shell and all. Whether the shell is dis- 
solved by powerful, acid dige.stive juices, or disgorged after the ab.sorp- 
tion of its contents, is not certainl\' known. The junior writer has ob- 
served, however, that ca])tured blue .sharks, as well as certain other 
species, have the power of everting the .stomach, so that the whole organ, 
inside out, trails a foot or more from the mouth. Po.s.siblv this denotes 
