The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-12-27

mercial products of the sea the writer
Is much indebted, says that the Greenland
sharks are sometimes towed ashore, in or
ger that their flesh may be converted into
Iood for cattle. Occasionally they are
utilized for human food being cut in strips
ana wind-dried. or else buried in the
ground until partly decomposed, when the
meat is taken up and prepared in a Pc
cultar manner. To digest this interesting
dish Is said to require an Arctic stom-
ach. There is kind of dogfish on the
Norway coast which lays eggs and the
yelkS OF these eggs are used by poor peo-
pie instead of hens eggs. Most sharks
prlnS forth their young alive, but some
lay eyes, and few species are ovo-vi-
Nlparous-i. E., produce eggs which con-
tain living young.
The kind of shark whose jaws are made
by the Eskimo into tiaras is the sleeper
or nurse shark. 1t is twenty-five feet
long. and is found on both coasts of the
United States. 1t is very ferocious, and
will undoubtedly attack man. This spe-
cles is determined enemy of the whale,
biting great pieces out of the flesh of its
cetacean victim. Another very dangerous
shark is the tiger shark, which is even
larger and proportionateiy fierce. 1t is a
terrible foe to whales. Frequent Speci-
mems are seen off our shores, as far north
as cape Cod, Mass, and San Diego, Cal.
1 ne leopard shark reaches a length of
twenty feet; it is yellow, with brownish
spots. The thresher gets its name from
its mode of attacking the whale, which it
lashes with its tail. 1t is thirty feet long,
and its enormous tail is half the length
of it's body. The sand shark is common
on the Atlantic coast, and extraordinarily
voracious, though only five feet long. 1t
hugs the sandy bottoms of bays.
Prac tical.y all Of the large sharks Of
the world frequent our own waters more
or less, but these predacious fishes are
most numerous in tropical waters, where
fish life of al sorts is thickest and food,
therefore, most plentiful. Sharks fire.
quently travel about in great schools,
driving every other kind of fish out of the
regions through which they proceed. This
Is, especially true of the small sharks CALI
ed doghsh. There are several hundred
known species of sharks One of the re-
puted man-eaters is the cub or requiem
shark, which is almost exclusively tropi-
cal. 1t IS numerously present among the
Florida keys, and is notorious as a scav-
enser about wharves. Most people will
be surprised to learn that there are any
fresh-WaJer sharks, but ii is a fact that
sharks of one species are very numerous
in Lake Nicaragua. They are about five
feet long. Al one time this lake was par;
changes it was converted into its present
shape The sea water became gradually
fresh, and the sharks accommodated
themselves to the altered conditions.
Sharks are among the most ancient of
fishes. Great quantities of their fossil
teeth are found scattered over the bottom
OF the ocean from which they are brought
up by dredges. In the valley of the Poto-
mac large numbers of sharks teeth are
turned up by the pillow. Some of them are
Of huge. size, showing that certain species
vastly bigger than any now surviving.
The writer has seen one of these teeth
which was six inches long and five inches
wide, weighing a pound. The teeth of the
great white shark are only two inches
long. The original owner of the tooth de-
scribed could not have been less than
eighty feet in length. Such fossil teeth
are often used for battle axes by savages
Among the natives of the Pacific Islands,
by the way, sharks liVers are regarded
as a royal luxury.
Sharks vary in respect to the number
of rows of teeth which they possess. The
white shark has seven rows. Only one
row is used at a time, however. The
other rows lie down inside the mouth be-
hind the edge of the jaw, erecting them
selves when II is time for them TO take
successfully the place of the WORKOUT
first row. One of the most dangerous
sharks in the world is the blue shark,
which replaces the white shark in colder
waters. Sharks are often killed by por.
poises, which will surround a shark and
lash the enemy to death with their fiukes.