Fishing for sharks is one of the most exciting kinds of sport, and has the further merit that its success is the destruction of the most destructive inhabitant of the sea; a predatory robber, who spares none that come in his way. The prey in which the shark most delights is, however, man himself. He even manifests, according to some authorities, a preference for Europeans over the Asiatic or the Negro races. A shark who has once enjoyed the luxury of human flesh is said to haunt the neighborhood where he obtained it. He follows a ship from some instinctive feeling, and has been known to leap into a fisherman's boat, or throw himself against a ship in an effort to reach a sailor who had shown himself over the bulwarks. The slave ships during their voyages were constantly followed by sharks, who battled eagerly for the corpses of the unhappy dead which were thrown overboard. In one case it is recorded that a corpse was hung from the yard arm, dangling twenty feet above the water, and was devoured, limb by limb, by a shark, who leaped that distance from the water to obtain his horrid repast.
On the African coast the negroes boldly attack the shark in his own element. As his mouth is placed under his head, he has to turn round before he can seize anything, and taking advantage of this, the negro seizes the opportunity to rip him up with a sharp knife.
Shark fishing is regularly followed off the coast of Nantucket, for their skins and the oil they furnish. The skins are used for various purposes in the arts. In Norway and Iceland portions of the flesh are dried, and serve as provision for the food of winter.
The persistancy with which a shark will follow a vessel at sea leads to their frequently being caught. The hook is of iron, as thick as a man's finger, and six or eight inches long, the point made very sharp. It is fastened with a chain five or six feet long, to prevent the shark's teeth from severing it. Baited with a good sized piece of pork, and fastened to a long line, it is thrown over. Sometimes in his eagerness to catch it the shark will jump from the water, but oftener, having probably learned from experience something about the tricks of men, he is more cautious in taking it. Often he will examine it, swim round it, and manage to get it, without taking the hook also, as often as it is offered to him rebaited. If he, however, swallows the hook with the bait, it still requires some dexterity to catch him; the line must not be jerked prematurely; he must be given time enough to swallow it well, then a good jerk fixes the point of the hook, and the sport commences for everybody but the shark. In hauling him in it is not safe to trust only to the hook; his struggles are so violent and his strength is so great that he may break away. Being hauled therefore to the surface, the next thing is to get the noose of another rope round his body near the tail, or round one of his pectoral fins. This done he may be safely hauled on board, but even then he cannot be approached without danger, since a blow from his tail may prove fatal. In catching sharks off the coast of Nantucket, in smacks, the fishermen haul them to the surface at the side of the boat, and then kill them with blows on the head before taking them on board.
CUTTLE FISH MAKING HIS CLOUD.
Among the monsters of the deep, none is more terrific in appearance than the cuttle fish. Terrible stories have been told of the magnitude of these sea monsters. Under the name of the Kraken marvelous tales were told of its destruction of ships, one of them, it being said, embracing a three-masted ship in its gigantic arms. Our illustration, however, shows a well authenticated case of the capture of an enormous cuttle fish. An account of the capture was made to the French Academy of Sciences by Lieutenant Bayer, the commander of the French corvette Alecton, who made the capture, and M. Sabin Berthelot, the French Consul at the Canary Islands. While on her course between Teneriffe and Madeira, the Alecton fell in with a large cuttle fish measuring about fifty feet in length, without counting its eight arms, covered with suckers. Its head, its largest part, measured about twenty feet in circumference: its tail consisted of two fleshy lobes or fins. Its weight was estimated at 4,000 pounds. Its color was brickish red, and its flesh was soft and glutinous. The shots which were fired at it passed through it without apparently producing any injury. After it was thus wounded, however, the sea was observed to be covered with foam and blood, and a strong odor of musk was smelt. Harpoons were also cast into it, but they took no hold. Finally, however, one of the harpoons stuck fast, and the sailors succeeded in getting a running noose round the lower part of its body, near the tail. On attempting to haul it on board, the rope cut it in two, the head part disappearing and the tail portion being brought on deck.