Land shark

“ They feed upon crustaceous animals, but will take a bait. The picked-dog, spur-dog, or bone-dog, but commonly known as the dog-fish, is the smallest, but unquestionably the most numerous of the shark tribe. It frequents our coasts all the year round, and even in the severest weather. Then there are the spinous shark, and Greenland shark, which will not be driven away from feeding upon the blubber of a stranded, half-immersed whale, although pierced with spears, but come again to the oleaginous banquet while a spark of life exists. The basking-shark also, occasionally, casts up on our coasts. ”

“ One fellow saw her standing by the head of the after-cabin stairs, when he went aft to strike the bell a moment before—another heard the splash—but when the boats were dropped, nothing was to be seen on the long, dazzling swell of the sea but the back-fin of a large blue shark, veering slowly round between the boats and the ship, as if he had missed his prey—except it were a gull asleep, with its head under its wing—or the fresh branches of a tree, drifting toward the mouth of the Gulf, on the current of the dry monsoon. ”

“ All experiences point to the contrary, for it is common knowledge that sharks will gobble up anything thrown overboard from a ship, from a corpse swathed in canvas to a lump of coal. This omnivorousness has been noticed in an able article published in Chambers’s Journal many years ago, the writer putting forward as a plausible reason for it the number of parasites that infest the stomachs of these fish. In this, however, they are by no means singular, all fish harbouring a goodly number of these self-invited boarders, the shark certainly entertaining no more than the average. ”

“ In a steady succession the sharks would shoot high out of the water in a graceful, deadly curve and, as they fell back, suddenly stiffen in a whip-lash bend that instantly straightened at the moment of impact, sending a flying mass of spray like that when a solid shot ricochets in gun practice. A few such blows and even a bulky, blubber-coated whale would feel it. Sometimes a shark would strike fair, though more often he would waste his energy on the empty water as the whale dove. ”

“ My belief is that they will attack a native as quickly as a white man, if they are molested. Possibly the color of the white man's body may attract a shark's attention quicker than the dark skin of the natives.
They are more ferocious when traveling in pairs. Sharks are not very vicious among the islands, especially where they are right out in the ocean and fish food is plentiful. They are more dangerous in harbors like Sydney and Melbourne. I have never known a shark to attack any of the native boys who dive round the ship for coins thrown by passengers. ”

“ They only attach themselves to the pelagic species found in deep water; there are always five or seven of them to each shark, never an even number; they stick to the shark while he is floundering about in the water with a hook through his jaws, but as soon as he is hoisted above the surface of the sea they immediately disappear. ”

“ The really hungry shark is a ravening murderer—dangerous as a wounded buffalo, reckless as a mad dog.... I have seen one tear the paddle from the hand of a man beside me and sink its teeth, over and over again in a frenzy, in the bottom of a heavy canoe. How long do you suppose a swimmer would have lived? And it's not only the big sharks that are dangerous. I remember one day when a lot of us were bathing in Penrhyn lagoon. Suddenly one of the boys gave a shout and began to struggle with something in the waist-deep water—clouded with blood by the time I got there. ”

“ The captain seized a gun, shot the fish in a sensitive part, which then cast out the sailor into the sea, who was taken up, amazed and terrified, but little hurt.
"Every one knows that the shark is a most voracious creature. Its teeth are only incisive. It has no power of holding. It can snap and sever limbs, or trunk, or head, sheer and certainly as though its jaws were a guillotine. But in that case it secures only what is within the jaws. The rest is apt to be lost. Its habit, therefore, is to swallow the prey alive, that it may lose nothing. ”

“ There is no fish more cowardly, and yet more desperately savage than a shark. I have seen one harpooned twice, with a hook in his jaws, and come again to a fresh bait, yet will they suffer themselves to be scared by the smallest noise, and hardly ever take their prey without it is quite still. Generally speaking, any place surrounded by rocks where the surf breaks, although there may be no passage for a ship, will be secure from sharks. It was not until a great distance had been accomplished, that the swimmer became apprized of his danger, and saw by his side one of the terrific creatures ”

“ Thus this far-seeing tyrant of the ocean knows how to measure the number and power of the arms necessary to destroy its prey. For the destruction of the weak and defenceless, one row of teeth suffices; for the more formidable adversary it has a whole arsenal at command.
The eyes of the Shark are small, and nearly round; its scent is very subtle; its fins are strong and rough. The tail is possessed of immense power, and is capable of breaking the limb of a robust Man by a single stroke.
He seeks eagerly for human flesh, and haunts the neighborhood where it hopes to find the precious morsel. ”

“ They then peer into the water, and when one of the fishermen sees a shark lazily stretching itself on the sand that lies under the overhanging rocks, he lets himself very quietly into the sea, dives down with the rope in his hand, slips the noose over the shark’s tail, and rises to the surface. As soon as he gets into the boat, the men drag the shark out of his retreat, and haul away until the creature’s tail is raised out of the sea, when it becomes nearly helpless. A sudden jerk brings it into the canoe, where it is instantly killed. ”

“ Of the many different varieties of sharks, there are but two that will attack a man in the water. These are the blue shark, and the ground, or shovel-nosed shark. No more danger need be apprehended from the common brown shark than from a porpoise. We have often seen a Kanaka jump overboard in a perfectly calm day, and swim after them with a sheath-knife, endeavoring to stab them, but Johnny Shark would keep out of his reach. And whenever we had a whale alongside, the sharks would be around in great numbers, and yet never touch the boat-steerer, who was overboard on the whale. ”

“ So, when a diver remains under water longer than usual, his friend in the canoe thus clears the surface, and, peering into the depths, ascertains what is going on, and, if need be, dives to the rescue.
Of course these are not the only dangers encountered by the fishers. There is the the ever-abiding dread of sharks, especially the awful white shark, which grows to about thirty feet in length, and is so fearless that it is frequently known to attack canoes and drag its victims into the water, either by seizing some carelessly outstretched limb or by overturning the canoe. ”

“ He takes with him a hand-net and a stick about two feet in length, jumps into the water, and dives among the coral, holding his net over the nooks and crevices with one hand, while with the stick he drives the fish out of their hiding places into the net.
By this mode of fishing great numbers are captured, but the fisherman is always exposed to two dangers. In the first place, there is a chance that a shark may come up unobserved, and carry off a limb, even if it does not kill the man. ”

“ Possibly the bottom, which was clear, was favourable for his enemy; whose blow, if he succeeds in striking while the shark is descending, is fatal. I think he had struck him, for the blue shark is seldom seen in shoal or discoloured water; yet now he floundered on towards the bottom of the bay, madly lashing the water into foam, and rolling and pitching like a vessel dismasted. For a few minutes his conqueror pursued him, then wheeled round and disappeared; while the shark grounded himself on the sand, where he lay writhing and lashing the shore feebly with his tail. ”

“ The northern ocean has its peculiar sharks, but some are good-natured, like the huge basking shark, (S maximus) , and feed on seaweeds and medusae and the rest, such as the picked dog-fish, (Galeus acanthius) , are, although fierce, of too small a size to be dangerous to man.
But the dog-fish and others, such as the blue shark, are very troublesome and injurious to the fisherman; though they do not venture to attack him, for they hover about his boat and cut the hooks from his lines. Indeed, this sometimes leads to their own destruction ”

“ Look at the shape of it—more like a Zulu assegai than anything else; it is a weapon, primarily; a thrust of it would kill a naked man. The Manihiki people spend a lot of their time in canoes on the open sea—after bonito by day and flying-fish by night—and those waters swarm with sharks. They have developed their paddle into a weapon of defence. The Samoans carried a special shark club for the same purpose."
I asked his opinion on the disputed question of sharks—whether, in general, the shark is a real menace to the swimmer or the paddler of a small canoe. ”

“ The pearl fishers of the Gulfs of Panama and Nicoya only use a short stick, with which, if the sharks get above them, they stir up the mud, under cover of which they swim along the bottom for a little distance, and then shoot up to the surface. Of the equality in which a good swimmer armed with a knife feels himself in encountering a shark, there are numerous instances. ”

“ We got a very ugly brown shark this morning, one of those deep-sea Arctic sharks (Squalus Borealis) that do not follow ships, but live away down fifty fathoms deep and possibly eat cod. Why he came up it is hard to say; possibly he scented seal. We welcomed him with a harpoon as he swam alongside, and got a running bowline round his tail, and slung him alongside, head down, till he nearly died. He was only ten feet eight inches, a rough brown ugly beggar, not so fierce-looking or active as those blue sharks we killed last year, off the Azores, for eating our sperm-whale blubber. ”

“ A much larger and more dangerous fish, which often visits northern seas, is the blue shark, which sometimes grows to a length of fifteen or sixteen feet. It does not often attack human beings, however, but is very destructive in our fisheries, snatching away fishes which have been hooked, and even swimming along the outside of the nets as they are being drawn in, and biting great holes through them, in order to get at the pilchards or herrings within. So the fishermen always kill a blue shark if they have the chance of doing so, and sometimes destroy eight or ten in a single day. ”

“ A shark, like a midshipman, is generally very hungry; but in the rare cases when he is not in good appetite he sails slowly up to the bait, smells at it, and gives it a poke with his shovel-nose, turning it over and over. He then edges off to the right or left, as if he apprehended mischief, but soon returns again, to enjoy the delicious haut goût of the damaged pork, of which a piece is always selected, if it can be found. ”

“ You know Colombo, and how the native boys dive for coins in the shark-infested bay. Of course, it is only among the ground sharks and fish sharks that they venture. It is almost uncanny the way they know sharks and can sense the presence of a real killer—a tiger shark, for instance, or a gray nurse strayed up from Australian waters. Let such a shark appear, and, long before the passengers can guess, every mother's son of them is out of the water in a wild scramble for safety.
“It was after tiffin, and Miss Caruthers was holding her usual court under the deck-awnings. ”

“ The harpooners and officers from their lofty position on the cutting stage slew scores upon scores by simply dropping their keen-edged blubber spades upon124 the soft crowns of the struggling fish, the only place where a shark is vulnerable to instant death. The weapon sinks into the creature’s brain, he gives a convulsive writhe or two, releases his hold and slowly sinks, followed in his descent by a knot of his immediate neighbours, all anxious to provide him with prompt sepulture within their own yearning maws. ”

“ The utmost silence was always observed; and even when lighting our pipes we were always careful not to let the reflection of the flame of the match fall upon the water, on account of the sharks, which would at once be attracted to the canoe, and hover about until they were rewarded for their vigilance by seizing the first palu brought to the surface. Sometimes a hungry shark will seize the outrigger in his jaws, or get foul of it, and upset the canoe, and a capsize under such circumstances is a serious matter indeed. ”

“ The lagoon sharks are of a different species to the short, thick, wide-jawed “man-eaters,” although they are equally dangerous at night time as the deep-sea prowlers. The present writer was for a long time engaged with a native crew in the shark-catching industry in the North Pacific, and therefore had every opportunity of studying Jack Shark and his manners. ”

“ The shark betrays its presence by its black dorsal fin above the surface of the sea. When the fin disappears the danger increases, becomes terrible; the fear of the swimmer in the vicinity of that black, unseen peril overmasters him. ”

“ The Sharks, like the Raias, have their mouth furnished with jaws, and for this reason they are classified in the same group of Cartilaginous Fishes, as distinct from the Lampreys and the Sturgeons. This family includes not only the Sharks, but the Dog-fishes, Hammerheads and the Saw-fish. All the species have a lengthened body, merging into a thick tail and a rough skin.
The Shark becomes the terror of the sea almost as soon as it is born. At first it eats the Cuttle-fish, Molluscs, etc., then the Flounders and Cod-fish. But the prey which has the greatest charm for him is Man. ”