The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1898-06-08
A PLEA FOR THE SHARK.
Ancient Fabrications Rejecting Seri
ously Upon Him Denied.

Squalidae have so long been subject 70
cruelty only possible to ignorant prey
udice, that the very name of shark is a
synonyme for anything rapacious, I'M
scrupulous and wholly detestable. A
few half-hearted attempts have been
made at intervals for centuries to stem
the flood of hatred but they have been
overwhelmed by the torrent of false
hood in the shape of anecdotes which
has been steadily flowing for so many
generations. 1t is hardly too much to
say that no creature known to man
has continued SO long under the stig-
ma of ancient fabrications as the
shark Anecdotes which If told Of any
other animal would have been laughed
into oblivion centuries ago are still
current about him. One is amazed to
find in ancient records tales which,
| under the influence Of superstitious ter
ror, are nlanifestly the source OF mod
ern shark yarns.
The perpetuaton of these fables in
the case Of the shark is perhaps in
some slight degree excusable. Men
who have had the most ample opportu-
mites for observation have culpa ply
neglected them, and it is absurd to ex-
pect professors Of natural history to be
seamen and fishermen. Their duties
are engrossing enough as it is, without
expecting them to become personally
acquainted with the creatures they
classify each in his own proper habit.
But seamen generally might render
splendid aid to science by noting with
careful watchfulness the characteristic
!, SO, ~ with which
they come in contact. They might also
refuse to tell stories which they could
easily prove to be untrue, merely be-
cause they have heard them from their
boyhood.
One Of the most firmly held beliefs
concerning sharks is that they prefer
the flesh of man to any other food.
Now, the fact is that the shark family,
with few exceptions, are natural eaters
of offal--scavengers of the sea. They
are the only large fish that perform
this most useful function AS a rule
the duty Of devouring the innumerable
dead things which would otherwise
pollute the sea devolves upon the crus-
tacea. But the omnivorous Squalidae,
with their enormous stomachs abnor-
NAL powers of digestion and apparently
Unsuitable appetites, patrol the waters
for carrion that floats, thereby tighten
| ing the labors of the toiling workers at
| the bottom. In consequence of this
prowling habit they are often near the
surface, where men may be unfortu-
nate enough to fall in their way
| Then If the human animal be unskilful
and timid he will most probably be de-
| 1N1ys rlxc Yn hooa11ua % ic q
man, but because he represents easily
obtainable food. For the shark,
though swift enough swimmer, is
handicapped by the peculiar position of
his mouth. Under ordinary conditions
there are no fish so slow of movement
that they cannot escape while the
unwieldy Squalls is bringing his body
| into position to bite. Even man, when
well accustomed to the water and the
| limitations of sharks, can always sue
! cessfully elude them. AS to their pref
erence for blacks it is pure myth,
| without the faintest foundation in
| fact. In many places visited by the
writer where sharks We're the common
| est of fish, black men were constantly
swimming and diving without paying
| apparently any heed to the hungry
monsters in their immediate vicinity;
yet never one of them was injured.
| During the Cutting i'm of whale at
Hapai the water near the carcass was
| literally boiling with the largest sharks
| existing anywhere. 1t seemed proba-
| BILE that before the blubber was all
stripped the ravening monsters, many
of them fully as long as one of our
| whaleboats, would have eaten costly
proportion of it, so energetic were they.
At the same time, the natives lowering
around in their canoes were constant
ly in and out of the water, actually
among the sharks, needing them no
more than if they had been so many
sprats. On several occasions it has
also been the writer's doubtful privi-
lege to spend hours in the water cling
ing to fragments of broken boats in the
| immediate vicinity of dead whale.
And although ones legs always felt in
secure, every touch seeming to promise
| their instant loss, casualties of that
kind never happened. Nor among the
countless stories of the whale fishery
current among the South Sea men has
the writer ever heard of man being
| seized by sharks when in the water
| near a dead whale. AS to the prowess
| of these monsters, and the numbers of
| them that congregate wherever food is
to be had 1t may be interesting to re-
cord the following fact. We had killed
large bull humpback (megaptera) in
shoal water near Tongatabu, which
sank at death. Unable to raise it for
want of gear, that night one boat re-
manned on the spot while the others re-
turned to the ship. In less than one
| hour from the sinking of the carcass
there were, at the lowest computation.
five hundred large sharks around the
| place.
Many of them were so large that we
could hardly persuade ourselves that
they were sharks at all, but we knew
no other fish of such a size existed.
One especially, that gave the boat a re-
sounding blow with it's tail as he turned
beneath us, was larger in girth than
i she was, and as nearly as possible of
the same length. Now, our boat was
three feet six inches beam amidships,
l and twenty-eight feet long. Neyerthe-