The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-09-14
BIOGRAPHY OF A SHARK.
VIVID LIRE-STORY OF 4 GREAT
 MAN-EATER.

It was down on the Pages reef,
 where the green melts suddenly into
 seas of turquoise, tha he man-eaer
 first saw light. He was born amid scenes of of blood and sudden death;
 ushered into the world amid pitiless
 attack and saved, of all the hellish
 brood, by the swirl of waters, the up- lifted sand cloud, caused by savage
 kinsmen in their ruthless charge and cannibalistic feast.
 His first act was a drama in the
 struggle for existence. There was no
 one to teach him how to swim, to
 breathe, to see, and instinct, that in-
 heritance of the ages, bade him lie
 limp and motionless. Being of the
 same color as the sandy bottom, a
 ltvid tawny gray, he crouched, and
 was buried by the shroud of falling
 particles as they sifted down through
 the green and opalescent water.
 He was about one foot in length,
 lank, pliable, soft and tender. He
 did not have bone in his body, in-
 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 reslessly, 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 knew not what he swung the limp tail, shot ahead and ran olindly beneath the edge of a wall of projecting branch coral which formed a cheval de frise to the channel. No more fortunate position could have been selected; indeed, it was prophetic of the good luck which followed the man-eater all his life.
 The jagged points of the correl were so many bayonets over his recumbent body. He had found a snug harbor and that it was safe was evident by the numbers of crayf1sh which occu- pied similar position along the line, brandishing their serrated whips and assuming an air of hostility and bray cry which was the merest presump- ton.
 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 objects near at hand. He was terrified at the strange sights, which, as the darkness deepened, flashed and scintilated in every direction; now as starlike ob- Iects, again as comets pulsating on through the water with a fry train: and as large fishes surged by, the en- ire mass of water blazed with such a golden radiance that the young man. eater fell back against the coral of his len trembling and quivering with ear.
 All night he lay quietly, now and again prodded by the serrated spine l 'f an inquisitive crayfish, whicle once sprawling many-armed octopus crossed over him-a nerveracking 'ensation-as this infant man-eater lad nerves, and realized it until he l vas feet in length, when they grad 1 lally became obliterated. In time the | ight of day came and he observed that l he water over him was much lower han it had been; it had dropped | away, as it were, and then seeing that le was partly covered by sand he 1 ell asleep and did not awaken for iome hours, when he saw that the wa CT over him was deeper, that in some vay it had risen.
 The white sand led gradually up- yard with coral on all sides, and as le wandered on. he observed that the mailer inhabitants of the place fled rom him. He suddenly came upon a cry high and beautifully y-collored fish vice his own size, and was about to rop to the bottom and hide, when @ was amazed to see the angel-f1sh art away. Then for the first time here crept into the man-eater's brain he idea that he was a power, that | pr some reason he was dreaded and cared, and at once his side swing ecame swagger and he shot trough the water with such rapidity nat he rose up the side of the sandy lope and came into a region of de- ghts, his home or ranging ground or many day. For several months he lived this fe, slowly making his way over the olendid tropical floor of the ocean leeping at times in coral heads, or un- CT them, foraging where he could, arting clumsily upon octopi, crabs. ven starishes, or any miserable crea- Ire which could offer no resistance II lus early in life displaying his sordid | ature. The young shark never left { le shadows, and at the end of a i ear, nurtured on good diet, had ma II rially enlarged. He was now three I et m length; his tail long and power- Ie Il, his body noticeably bulky. But ( 1e greatest change was in the mouth. $ he first row of teeth were well de- la 1ed, sharp and serrated. The eve f as little largen but still the color c
 sand paper, with no expression. He r Id begun to change his diet Ha ' scovered that crayf1sh and other s ustaceans went out on the shallow | lts at night to feed, and that rays me there to hunt them; so one q ght, instead of coiling up in a. coral l. 'ad, the man-eater, following a lit- fl channel through the reef at high h de, swan across a lagoon of sand 1 f. -ergrOWn hv short sna-mnna o,