30 BROOKLYX MUSEU:\I SCIENCE BULLETIN 3. I. 
ton and a half. These huge species have always been hunted more or 
less by sperm whalers, and one New Bedford skipper is said to have taken 
125 barrels of bone shark oil in two da\'s. The ])one shark is still hunted 
from the Iceland and Irish coasts, and about the middle of the eighteenth 
century, before the days of American ]ielagic whaling, an extensive 
fishery was conducted along the Massachusetts coast, when it was not 
unusual to obtain 400 gallons of oil from a single liver. The fi.shes were 
captured by harpooning from .small boats, the iron being thrown as near 
the snout as po.s.sible in order to pre\-ent the shark from diving before it 
could be lanced. The dangerous feature of the industry was the likeli- 
hood of the boat's destruction by the huge fish's tail. The liver oil was 
tried out in ordinary iron l:)oiling jiots. 
According to the Ignited States Fish Conunission Report for 1902, 
" Shark oils are largely u.sed in tanneries, in steel tem])ering, and in \-ar- 
ious compounds where it is desired to impart a low s]iecific gravity. The\' 
are also valuable as a liody for ])aints for out-of-door objects, as 
walls, fences, etc." 
The bone shark recentl>' captured at \Ve.stham])t()n, and referred to 
above, had become entangled in a liluefish net, and was hauled ashore 
alive. It was examined b\- Dr. L. Hussakof, who writes as follows :"^ 
" The shark was a male, fourteen feet in length. The caudal had 
been cut off before I reached the scene, so that I could not verify the exact 
length ; but from the measurements I made, the length was apparently as 
.stated. The s]iecimen was therefore small for this s]^ecies, not even half 
grown. 
"The color of the shark was gra\ish black, a little darker above 
than on the sides and bell>-. The under side was not white, as it is .stated 
to be in textbooks ; the only white about the specimen was a triangular 
patch on the under side of the rostrum, extending from the mouth as a 
base, to a point half-wa\- to the ti]) of the snout. There were also two 
pale bands in the mid- ventral region, one on either side of the median 
line ; they were about two inches in width, and had broken or jagged 
margins. They were confined to a ]K)rtion of the ventral region, in front 
of the mixopterygia. 
" The mo.st .striking feature about the shark, to one who had never 
seen the species in the flesh, was the extraordinary shajie of the ro.strum. 
This was the exact form of the lead end of a bullet, and .so unlike that of 
Copeia, 191,5. No. 21, p. 25. 
