The fore-teeth, near the symphysis, accorded in every respect with the New Zealand specimens; more posterior they became equilateral, but were all unserrated at their edges.
The capture of one of these voracious animals frequently beguiles a tedious hour during a long voyage. Its struggles, when brought on deck, are very great, but a few severe blows on the nose soon disable it from further exertion. When seizing any object, the animal turns on the side, not (as is generally supposed) on the back. The shark, judging by an European palate, is not good eating: the fins and tail are very glutinous, and are the portions most relished by the seamen; when dried, they form an article of commerce to China, where they are used in soups, and considered as an excellent aphrodisiac. I have seen several sharks and bonitos about the ship at the same time, but I never observed the former attempt to molest the latter. The shark is eaten eagerly by the natives of the Polynesian Islands, and I have often seen them feasting on it in a raw state, when they gorge themselves to such an excess as to occasion vomiting. It is not an unfrequent source of illness among these islanders, and they suffer so much in consequence, as to lead them to suppose that their dissolution is nigh; but they cannot be persuaded that the eating of raw fish is the cause. An emetic soon removes the symptoms, by removing the cause; and the sufferer considers the cure as almost miraculous.
Attending the shark, is seen that beautiful little fish, the Gasterosteus ductor, or pilot-fish; which first approaching the bait, returns as if to give notice, when, immediately after, the shark approaches and seizes it.[90] It is a curious circumstance that this elegant little fish is seen in attendance only upon the shark. After the shark is hooked, the pilot-fish still swim about, and for some time after he has been hauled on deck; they then swim very near the surface of the water, and at that time I have seen them taken by a basket from the chains of the ship. When the shark has been hooked and afterwards escapes, he generally returns, and renews the attack with increased ferocity, irritated perhaps by the wound he has received.
On the 18th of March, 1831, during my former voyage, in lat. 44° 56′ north, and long. 25° 10′ west; in the evening, two sharks of a very large size were seen at a short distance from the ship. A high dorsal fin, projecting from the water, was at first only discernible, and had a resemblance to a rock.[91] It was at first stationary, but soon began to move steadily along, and then occasionally the tail could be seen partially above the water. I know not to what species to refer it; one of the crew on board, who had been in a whaler, said that it was what they named a “bone shark” which is seen in numbers alongside the ships when they are cutting up a whale. He said, also, that he had seen them as large as a twenty-barrel whale; that “the mouth resembled the gill of a fish, and they are spotted over the back.” Whether the latter part of this account accorded with the actual appearance of the fish, I was not sufficiently near to ascertain, but it appeared correct with respect to its large size.
The natives of the Polynesian islands have such a dread of sharks as to worship some of them as gods; not from any respect or love towards them, but from fear. Ellis states, that, “although they would not only kill, but eat certain kinds of shark, the large blue sharks (Squalus glaucus) were deified by them; and, rather than attempt to destroy them, they would endeavour to propitiate their favour by prayers and offerings. Temples were erected, in which priests officiated, and offerings were presented to the deified monsters; while fishermen, and others who were much at sea, sought their favour. Many ludicrous legends were formerly in circulation among the people, relative to the regard paid by the sharks at sea to priests of their temples, whom they were always said to recognize, and never to injure. The principal motive, however, by which the people appear to have been influenced in their homage of these creatures, was the same that operated on their minds in reference to other acts of idolatry: it was the principle of fear, and a desire to avoid destruction in the event of being exposed to their anger at sea.”[92]
In olden times sharks were considered to be allied to the Leviathans of the deep, and afforded then, as at the present day, amusement to passengers traversing the ocean. The following account of the capture of one of these voracious animals, from Dr. Fryer’s “New Account of India and Persia,” published in 1698, is amusing:—
“Two of the lesser offspring of the great Leviathan (the weather being calm, these sort of them else not visible, being of no swift motion) came sailing after us; our men, as eager of them as they of their prey, hastened their engines for to take them; which no sooner in the water but each of them, guided by some half-a-dozen delicately-coloured little fishes, which, for their own safeguard, perform the office of pilots, (they never offering to satisfy their hunger on them,) who lead them to the baits; when they, turning their bellies up, seize upon them on their backs, hook themselves in the toils, beating the sea into a breach, and not without a great many hands are drawn over the sides of the ship; which seen by the poor silly little fishes, (as conscious of their error,) they swim to and again, and hardly forsake the ship; but being within board, the ship’s company, armed with hatchets, presently divide the spoil. They are not scaly, and therefore imagined to be a kind of whale, being finned like them, with a great fin on their backs, near their tails, (which dried, is used instead of a slate,) of a darkish-grey colour on their backs, lighter on their sides, and white under their bellies; their snout on the same plain with their mouths, but their mouth within that a great way; the cause why they turn their bellies when they take their prey. The mouth of one of them extended, is two spans wide, armed within with three tier of sharp-pointed teeth on both jaws, so piercing that needles exceed them not, and of such strength that a leg or an arm, bone and all, is but an easy morsel; wherefore called sharks by the seamen, on whom they are bold enough to fasten and dismember, if not shunned, when they wash themselves. They are of a rank smell, and not good to eat but by stout stomachs; of length they are ten, sometimes fourteen feet.”
I shall now make a few observations on muscular irritability, as exemplified by the shark. That which is termed muscular irritability, and which is met with to a great degree in all cold-blooded animals, is well exemplified in the shark, which perhaps possesses it to a greater degree than other kinds of fish. I have seen a shark transfixed with a harpoon after it had been hooked, so as to cause the viscera to protrude; it was hoisted on deck, when, after a quarter of an hour had elapsed, the lower part was separated from the upper; (which detached lower portion for a long time displayed great powers of vitality;) the head and upper portion were afterwards thrown into the water, when the pectoral fins were moved as in the action of swimming. How long this irritability continued I cannot say, (but from other instances that I had seen, I should consider for a long period,) as it soon went astern of the ship. I have frequently seen the animal hauled on deck, the whole of the viscera extracted, and the body otherwise mangled when thrown overboard, swim for some distance in this mutilated state. Again, a shark has been hung up with the abdomen ripped open, the whole of the viscera extracted, and the head detached; yet symptoms of vitality, or rather muscular irritability, remained for three hours from the time of its removal from the water; and this frequently occasions the spectators to consider that the animal is in a state of suffering. It is only in the cold-blooded animals that we meet with it to such an extent; in the warm-blooded animals it occurs, but in a very slight degree.