The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-10-05
VIVID LIFE-STORY OF A GREAT
 MAN-EATER.

breathe, to see, and instinct, that in- heritlnce of the ages, bade him lie limp and motionless. Being of the sane color as the sandy bottom, livid. tawny gray. he crouched, and was buried by the shroud of falling par titles as they sifted down through the green and opalesceht water.
 He was about one foot in length, lank, pliable, soft and tender. He did not have a bone in his body, iTlE deed never had; he was an embryo killing machine. of gristle, with just the suggestion of sharp teeth around his jaws.
 For hours he lay mound on the sand, resting easily on his big pad like pectoral fins and tail that fell over upon his side; then as darkness came, he moved restlessly, flung his tail to one side, and was surprised to find that he shot forward and found him. self in midwater. He could move was buoyant; then fear came again. and alarmed at his exposed position, afraid of he knlw not what, he swung the limp tail, shot ahead and ran blind ly beneath the edge of a wall of pro- jecting branch coral which formed a cheval de frise to the channel. No more fortunate position could have been se- lected; indeed, 1t was prophetic of the good luck which followed the man-eat- CT all his life.
 The jagged points of the coral were so many bayonets over his recumbent body. He had found snug harbor, and that it was safe was evident by the numbers of crayfish which occu- pied similar position along the line, brandishing their serrated whips and assuming an air of hostility and braV- cry which was the merest presumption. As night came on the young shark shifted from side to side, working the sand out so that he could lie with ease, gradually forming nest in the soft sand the shape of his yielding body. His eyes, which were of the exact shade of his skin, but spotted | with black, now began to take in ob- iects near at hand He was terrified ! at the strange sights. which, as the darkness deepened. flashed and sclntil- lated in every direction, now as star like objects, again as comets pulsating on through the water with fiery train; and as large fishes surged by, such a golden radiance that the young man. eater fell back against the coral i of his den trembling and quivering with feaar.
 All night he lay quietly, now and again prodded by the serrated spine of an inquisitive crayfish, while once l a sprawling many armed octopus cross- ed over him--za nerve-racking sensa- 1 tion-as this infant man-eater had , nerves and realized it until he was six feet in length, when they gradually became obliterated. In time the light of day came and he observed that the 1 water over him was much lower than it had been; it had dropped away, as 1 it were, and then seeing that he was 1 partly covered by sand, he fell asleep and did not awaken for some hours, when he saw that the water over him was deeper, that in some way it had risen.
 The white sand led gradually up- ward with coral on all sides, and as i he wandered on, he observed that the smaller inhabitants of the place fled from him. He suddenly came upon a very high and beautifully -colored fish twice his own size, and was about to drop to the bottom and hide, when he was amazed to see the angel-fish dart away. Then for the first time l there crept into the man-eaters brain the idea that he was a power, that for some reason he was dreaded and feared, and at once his side swing be- came a swagger and he shot through the water with such rapidity that he rose up the side of the sandy slope and came into a region of delights, his home or ranging ground for many a day.
 l For several months he lived this life, slowly making his way over the splen-
 did tropical floor of the ocean, sleeping at times in the crevices of rocks, or
 between coral heads, or under them, i foraging where he could, darting clImsily upon octopi, crabs, even star
 fishes, or any miserable creature which could offer no resistance, thus early in life displaying his sordid nature. The young shark never left the shadows, and at the end of a year, nutured on
 good diet, had materially enlarged. He J was now three feet in length; his tail long and powerful, his body noticeably l bulky. But the greatest change was in the mouth The first row of teeth were well defined, sharp and serrated. The eye was little larger, but still
 the color of sand paper, with no express
 sion. He had begun to change his diet 1 He discovered that crayfish and other crustaceans went out on the shallow 1 flats at night to feed, and that rays ] came there to hunt them; so one night, instead of coiling up in a coral head, 1 the man-eater, following little chan
 nel through the reef at high tide, 1 swan across a lagoon of sand over-
 grown by short sea- weed. Conchs were Numbering along on this grassy floor,
 and in the submarine herbage were big
 yellow crayfish tough and dangerous.
 Suddenly there came floating along
 a ray with it's hirdlike motion. As it