Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1889-02-22
Essex County Herald.
Y. B. BISHOP, Publisher
ISSUED EVERY FRIDAY
-AR-
ISLAND POND, VT.
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THESEATIGER.
THE FEROCIoUS CHARACTER
ISTICS OF THE SHARK.
Rapacity, Strength, Size, Vanity and
Commercial Value of the Scav-
enger of the Ocean-Meth-
DDS of Catching.

coward, and will often run at the
slightest noise. The ordinary shovel
nose is famous coward, and scores of
times l have been In swimming in
Southern waters where they we're pass
ing up and down Immediately previous,
the splash and noise frightening them
away. Sharks in their method of at
tack call to mind lot of wild dogs. |
remember once noticing an OBJ lect leap
ing out of the water in curious way and
put out to it to find it the body of COW
that had been thrown overheard. 1t was
swollen by the generation of gases and
was surrounded by sharks. One big
fellow would seize and haul it under; /;
then several would grapple with it, so
that the body appeared to be alive, leap
ing out of the water to escape the hungry
horde. The sharks did not turn upon
their sides, but rushed up, butting the
mass out of water, and seZing it would
shake it as a dog would, endeavoring to
tear out piece of flesh. They finally
tore it apart and carried it to the bottom.
Sharks range in size from small speci-
mems up to monsters from fifty to sixty
feet in length. The ordinary man-eater,
carcharodon, ranges from seven to thirty
feet, one exceeding the latter length
having been caught in Australian waters.
Such a monster would dine upon a
horse with perfect ease, and the eating
capacity of some of them IS astonishing.
The largest living shark is the rhinodOn,
basking shark, huge, harmless mon
ster, with small teeth and whalbone-
like arrangement in the throat. Speci.
mems of this shark have been captured
having length of from forty to sixty
feet, and others seen that attained at
least seventy feet Our common basking
shark attains a length of forty or fifty
feet. A friend of the writer killed one,
and when it was lashed alongside of his
schooner, which was of sixty tons bur
den, it was longer than the vessel; and
he informed me that relative had
taken one much larger, or somewhere
near sixty feet in length.
The man eater of the South Atlantic
would seem large enough, but in the
olden days when our Atlantic seaboard
was under water-there lived man
eater that must have been at least 100
feet long Nothing is left to tell the
story of this giant but the teeth, which
are now found in the deposits at Charles
ton, s. c., and dred ged from the bot
tom of the river in that vicinity. They
still retain the beautiful polish which
characterizes those of living sharks to-
day, and are of enormous size for teeth,
some of the largest being almost as large
as an outstretched palm. The huge
teeth--and imagine the mouth that held
eight rows of them-ale sometimes
dredged in the deep Atlantic by the
scientific expeditions. Such large fish
could have we'll battled with the great
whales of the time and the gigantic sea
serpents which possibly peopled the
shoal waters of the coasts.
In feeding from the bottom, in my OBJ
servations the shark is very deliberate,
often swimming up and down by bait
some time before he finds it. The pilot
fishes will dart at it long before.
When the shark is within two or
three feet it evidently notices the
Odor, and | have seen one pass over a
baited hook, stop and back up and
take it into the mouth slowly, so that
in fishing it is always best to give
plenty of line, fifteen or twenty feet at
least, before jerking in the hook. BY
this time the shark has taken the hook
thoroughly into the mouth and it is quite
sure to take hold. In fishing for sharks
--one man can conquer the largest if he
has sufficient line-pulling in and slack
ing will often drown a shark, and with
unlimited rope | have managed sharks
and brought them to the beach, where
ordinarily eight or ten men were required
for the work. AS soon as a shark is
hooked he makes a bolt, and when
checked will make breaks in all direc-
tons, endeavoring to break the rope.
He must be taken in when slack can be
made, then let run and kept on the
move-a ser es of operations which soon
break his spirit. In boat | generally
let shark run for half mile, then took
in the slack slowly, and, when he was
we'll in, passed the line astern, and hauled
the head partly out of water In this
way large shark can be readily towed.
The shark is one of the scavengers of
the ocean. Nothing comes amiss to its
palate, and its value does not end here.
Valuable shark fisheries are established
in many countries. One hundred years
ago or more the 'bone shark fisheries
were almost as important as the Sar
Diego whale fisheries of to-day. The
big shark was killed for its liver, which
was made into an oil, having decided
commercial value, and TO day big shark,
are caught in Greenland, where the
"spec" is considered as currency. Or
the northern coast of Norway there is ,
shark fishery carried on in very deeI
water; the oil is used and the bodies arr
taken ashore and made into guano.
In the vicinity of Booth Bay, Me.
large buildings are often seen upon the
shore ha' ing the sign "Dogfsh Fac
tory" This means that the small sharE
known as dogfsh is bought there.
often happens in the last of summer tina
immense schools of doghsh set inshort
on the Maine coast and entirely destroy
the other fishing.
In point of numbers the dogfsh mum
ber millions, often completely film.
BAYS The suddenness of their arriva
can be imagined by the writer's expert
ence. On Tuesday, say, | caught all th
brake, cod, ling and other fish wanted
On Wednesday not one could be had OF
the same grounds Before the line 90
below the surface many feet dognsl
had the bait. There was nothing for tn
fisherman to do but to face this; and s.
all hands went dogiishing, and dorie
came in loaded to the gunwale with tn
sharks. Some men stood with the har
poon in hand and flung them into th
boat, and the fish were so ravenous tina
that they would bite at the oars, and sa,
a sail which had been dragging over
hoard which was literally torn ia piece
by them.
The ferocitJ of these small sharks
beyond conception. They come in fro1
deep water in state Of starvation an