SHARKS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 8952, 8 December 1890, Page 4

SHARKS.

The writer remembers, during one of his voyages across the Atlantic, one tempestuoiis night, when the wind and sea seemed to howl a funeral dirge, a seaman directed hia attention to a shark which appeared in the midst of the heaving billows. He recognised its presence by the phosphorescense, " the flash of golden fire," that glinted from his shining scales. He seemed to lust for a victim. He moved with a swiftness of motion that outstripped our vessel, and with a snap of his powerful jaws he could have cut a man in two. A story is related of the ship " Karnak," that as she was leaving the port ,of Nassau some years ago, a pilot fell overboard from his boat/ in which he was being towed. The ship was stopped, and the boat instantly left for his rescue, while two life-buoys were thrown from the ship. The boat got close enough to give him the end of an oar, which he took and cried, " For God's sake save me." The men were about to haul him into the boat, when he was carried down by a large shark which came up at the moment, taking the oar with him. A few days after the fatal accident a shark was captured in Nassau harbor, and, on being opened, the pilot's hand, and \vrist, with a portion of his 'shirt (by which the hand was identified), a- goat's head, with horns' nine inches long, and a turtle's head were found in his stomach. A correspondent of the Edinburg Observer says. " Looking over the bulwarks of the schooner I saw one of these watchful monsters winding lazily backward . and forward like a long meteor ; sometimes rising until his nose disturbed the surface, and a gushing sound, like a deep breath, rose through the breakers, at others, resting motionless on the water, as if listening to our voices,' and thirsting for our blood. As we were watching the motions of this monster, Bruce, a lively little negro, and my cook, suggested the possibility of destroying it. ' This was, briefly, to heat a fire-brick red hot in the stove, wrap it up hastily in a greasy cloth and then to heave it overboard. This was the work of few minutes, and the effect was triumphant. The monster followed after the hissing prey : we saw it dart like a flash of lightning, and gorge it instanter. The shark' rose to the surface almost immediately, and his uneasy motions soon betrayed the success of the experiment. His agonies became terrible, the waters appeared as if disturbed by a violent squall, and the spray was driven over the taffrail where we stood, while the gleaming body of the fish repeatedly burst through the dark waves as if writhing with fierce and terrrible convulsions. His fury was soon exhausted : in a short time the agitation of the sea ceased and the shark floated on the surface." Making a pet of a shark seems a monstrous idea, but such wan really the case some years ago with one of these animals which frequentcl Port Royal harbor, in Jamaica. It was called " Old Tom, of Port Eoyal," and was fed whenever it approached the ships, but was at length .killed by the father of a child which it had devoured. Whilst the shark frequented the port no other fish of his tribe dared intrude on his domain, where he reigned lord paramount. in his watery empire, and had not been known to commit any I depredation except the one fo- which he suffered. Sharks, even in their voracity, fulfil a wise law of Nature, they aro the scavengers of the ocean. Nothing seems to be rejected by these creatures ; offal of the most offensive I kind, living as well as well as dead matter, is greedily swallowed by them. |f- It takes a man with a pretty strong constitutibn to rise with the lark after being out on one all night. _^__