A "D. T." SHARK STORY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8020, 6 August 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

A "D. T." SHARK STORY.

The Paris correspondent of the Daily Telegraph tells at times wonderful tales. A shark story, which is published in one of his letters, may fairly be expected to carry off the palm for some time to come. A diver named Quintree, he writes, had a remarkable fight with a formidable fish called the b'oultoue or bondro, a kind of shark which invests the Breton coast at Doaarnenez. The diver, an old salt, descended, In a diving apparatus, off the Douarnenez Pier for the purpose of laying the foundation of an addition to that structure. While he was at the bottom of the sea, the men who were working the air pump in the pontoon boat above were suddenly frightened by feeling the alarm signal. They instantly pulled up, and brought a large boultous, nearly eight feet long, to the surface. The marine monster's head formed three quarters of his length, and his under jawe were of immense size, Shortly afterwards Quintree came up, his hand on the air pipe of his helmet, and his diving apparatus somewhat damaged. It appears that when he went down to his work he had scarcely got to the last rung of the ladder when he saw the sea monster lying between two huge lumps of rock. He had in his hands only his stone chisel and a hammer, and he intended to go up for a crowbar at once ; but the fish was too fast for him. It came towards him through the green water with its enormous jaws wide open. Y/ithout losing a moment Quintree managed to wound the animal in the throat with his chisel, and then held it down on a stone while he drew his knife and made a hole in its body through which he passed a rope and thus Bent the fish to the surface. Had it net been for his quickness and dexterity the diver, owing to the rents which the fish would make in his apparatus, would have been drowned and then devoured. As it happened, it was the boultou3 that was not only defeated but eaten, for its body was divided among the victor and his comrades, who mado a capital bouillabasse of its prime part?,