IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19260, 26 August 1924, Page 2

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

NEW ZEALAND SHARKS. (By J. Drummond. F.L.9., F.Z.S.) An individual of the grotesque hammer headed shark recently was found on the beach at Paraparaumu, west coast of the Wellington Province. It was only Ift llin long. Most individuals caught are between 2ft and 6ft, but in other countries hammer-headed sharks 15ft long have been caught. Members of this species are described by fishermen and sailors as the fiercest sharks of all, and most to be dreaded. They are a reddish-purple on top, and white, streaked with red dish below. Two large eyes are placed strangely at the ends of the hammer The largest shark recorded in New Zealand was a basking shark, stranded at Dcvonport, Auckland, in 1889. It was 34ft long, a member of the largest species of fishes in these days of small things, compared with' the giants of other days. Although reported from all temperate seas, it is uncommon in New Zealand waters. It lives mostly on small fishes, and other small inhabitants of the ocean, which are strained from the water by means of gill-rakers. It is particularly well equipped with small teeth, having about six rows in each jaw, and about 200 teeth' in each row. Some members of the species sometimes reach the great length of 40ft. These sharks have received their popular name on account of a practice of lying motionless in the mnshine on the surface of tho water, as if they were basking.

The white shark, another monster, is regarded as one of the most formidable fishes, but it seems to prefer the open sea to the neighbourhood of land. It has not been recorded in New Zealand as often as some of its extinct allies, whose fossil teeth have been found in large numbers in railway cuttings and excavations, sometimes far from present coast lines. The thresher, or sea-fox, uncommon in New Zealand waters, is characterised by a long tail, longer than its body, with which it splashes the surface of the water, in order, it is believed, to frighten together small surface fishes on which it feeds. It is believed to be inoffensive to man. As far as colours are concerned, the most conspicuous New Zealand shark is the carpet shark, whose upper surface and sides are marked with the rich browns, reds and blacks of an expensive carpet. In length it equals an average dog-fish shark, about 3ft. Sharks teeth formerly worn as ear-omaments by Maoris, in more recent years with broad black ribbons, to which' they were attached by sealing wax, seem to have belonged to the blue-pointer shark, the mako, but the Maoris used that name for all large sharks.

In the Curiosity Shop, Rakaia, there have been found slender, curved teeth, like an asp’s, that belonged to a Tertiary shark; an allied Tertiary shark, whose teeth have been found at Weka Pass and Waipara (Canterbury). Cave Valley (Oamarub and Kaitangata (Otago) was widely distributed in the seas, as its teeth have been found also in England, France, Belgium, Germany, Alabama, South Carolina, Corsica, and Victoria. In Cretaceous times, earlier than the Tertiary, a shark now extinct, lived in the waters of New Zealand, Europe, New Jersey. Patagonia, Madagascar, and Queensland. In New Zealand it has been reported from only one place, Amuri Bluff. North' Canterbury, the richest field for the fossil-hunter yet discovered in this dominion.

The best natural history book published this year was written by an American naturalist, who combines with the patience of an observer the pleasant faculty of writing in a clear and lively style. “Jungle Peace,” some six years ago introduced by Mr W. Beebe, an officer of the New York Zoological Society, to a wider circle of friends than zoology made for him. “Galapagos. World’s End,” this year, has throwri the circle out wider still. It is a zoologist’s account of a hundred hours on an interesting little archipelago on the equator, some 600 miles west qt South America. Like New Zealand, it has a unique fauna. Its birds are astonishingly tame, and it has reptiles that are found nowhere else. Zoologically, none of these has the same claim to distinction as New Zealand’s tuatara, which, it ancient lineage and conservatism stamp the aristocrat, is of the most aristocratic animal in the world, having scorned change since, perhaps, Jurassic times; but amongst the Galapagos reptiles are the biggest tortoise in the world, as big that a man can ride on its back, tne world’s only marine lizard, and an iguana resplendent in colours. The islands share with New Zealand only one creature, the turnstone, a gay migrant in black, brown, and white phimmage which, probably, touches at the Galapagos on its wonderful annual flight to New Zealand from its nesting place in the Northern Hemisphere. The chief zoological interest of those islands lies in the fact that they give glimpses into the world as it may have been before man came to change tU face-

Thirst. greed, war, and rascality largely mark man’s association with the Galapagoes. 'Early Spanish navigators named them the Enchanted Isles, appar ently because of the mystery of their position out in the great ocean. Dampier, Coxon, Davis, Hawkins, Sharp, Wafer, Ambrose Cowley and other buccaneers used them as refuges, picturesquely careened their ships there, held orgies on shore, marooned obstinate sailors, and, according to more substantial evidence than legend, buried their treasure amongst the lava rocks. Alexander Selkirk visited the group in a privateer after his lonely years on Juan Fernandez. From the Galapagos he returned to England, to become one of the most famous characters in fiction, as some people think, although critics exonerate Defoe from fraudulently using the Scottish solitaire's stories as a basis for Robinson Crusoe’s adventures.