78 THE LIVING WORLD. 
quency of the adventures in which they play a leading part. Quite frequently 
the sailor, tempted to take a swim, and remaining within what seems 
easy reach of the vessel, is bitten by a shark before his companions can 
pull him from the water. To render death terrible to the slaves who com¬ 
posed his cargo, the captain of an . African slaver hung a number of corpses 
to ropes and merely dipped them for a moment in the sea. In an 
instant the sharks had bitten off all but the feet themselves. There is a 
well-authenticated story of a shark jumping out of water, again and again, in 
its efforts to capture a negro woman who had been hung to the yard-arm. 
The amphibious efforts of the shark not only inspired the terror and horroi 
for which it had been intended, but was finally rewarded by securing the 
larger part of the culprit negro. The African slavers speedily became sources 
of supply to the sharks, for “ The spirit of gain, in the spirit of Cain,” natu¬ 
rally led to frequent 
loss of the stolen sav¬ 
ages packed together 
like sardines, insuffi¬ 
ciently fed and cared 
for, and like the sar¬ 
dine, frequently fried 
in their own oil. But 
unfortunately to the 
slaver, as well as to 
Hood’s seamstress, it 
was pitiful “that bread 
should be so dear, 
and human life so 
cheap,” and the sick, 
the maimed, the weak, 
were thrown into the 
sea with no greater 
reluctance than is 
shown by the angler 
in restoring to the 
water the fish which 
he cares not to keep. While the shark declines no kind of food, it is evident 
that this want of delicacv arises from necessity, not choice, for, like the King 
of the Cannibal Islands, he is very fastidious, and if at liberty to pick his man, 
takes by preference men in the order of color, preferring the darker shades as 
promising greater lusciousness, and less of the leanness and muscular stringiness 
of the sea-faring white man. Still, although the shark draws the color line 
we should not recommend any visiting white person to trust altogether to 
the shark’s being true to this preference, for like men, they sometimes forget 
their principles when too sorely tempted. 
The Chinese, whose densely populated country has forced them to the most 
untiring study of domestic economy, use the fins of sharks for the manufac¬ 
ture of gelatine; at one fishing station some forty thousand sharks were in a 
single year thus converted to the use of man. Until the invention of sand¬ 
paper, the skin of the shark, under the name of shagreen , was extensively used. 
BOY FATALLY BITTEN BY A SHARK. 
