SHARK.
Kalb-ul-bahr (sea-dog),AR. Pesee-eane, . . . Ir. Goulu de mer, . . FR. Jytt, Yu, . . . Matair. Hai-ftscb, . . . GER. Tiburon, . . . . SP. Auwal, . . . . HIND.
Sharks belong to the cartilaginous fishes ; they abound in numbers and species, and are remark able for their wide geographical distribution. They enter rivers to a considerable distance from the sea. The name for the shark in Malay and Javanese is Iyu, or, abbreviated, Yu, and is even found in some dialecta of the islands of the Pacific. The Carcharodon Rondelettii is the shark of Australia ; one of them measured 36i feet. The great basking shark is the Selache maxima. The shark of the Tigris river, of Indian rivers, and Fiji river is Carcharias Gangeticus.
The hammer-headed shark, shuang-chi-sha, caught on the coasts of China and Formosa. The fins are considered a great delicacy, and in their dried state sell at 60 dollars a pikul ; when skinned, cleaned, and cooked, often as much as 200 dollars a pikul. The fins of species of Car cliarias and Zygmna are the most prized. The meat is tolerably good.
The white shark, or sha-mu-lung of the Chinese, grows to 20 feet in length ; its fins are of less value.
The lung-men-sha is the shovel-nosed sucker. Its fins and flesh are more esteemed than auy other.
The saw-fish of China, also called shark saw fish or sha-chu-yu, grows to 15 feet in length. Its meat is eaten, and fins aro esteemed. The saw is kept as a talisman to ward off evil spirits.
The fishermen of Auping, in Formosa, distin guish Sixteen sharks. The most dangerous to man is the ta-yuan-t'ou-sha, or big round-headed shark. Its fins are of second quality, and flesh indifferent. Chinese say that the eat-bird shark, shilt-niao-sha, simulates death, and floats on the surface of the water. Sea birds thinking it.dead, alight on it, and are caught by the shark sinking its tail, on which the birds move towards its head.
Shark skin is used by the native workmen for polishing wood and ivory ; and shark-fins are largely exported to China. In the Gulf of Manaar they are taken for the sake of their oil, of which they yield such a quantity that shark's. oil is a recognised export, A trade also exists in drying their fins, for which, owing to the gelatine con tained in thein, a ready market is found in China, whither the skin of the basking shark is also sent, to be converted, it is said, into shagreen. Sharks are said to attack the fair-skinned races more frequently than men of darker hues, and the pearl-divers of the Persian Gulf used to blacken their skins with a view to avoid these monsters.
In the South Pacific and Sandwich Islands sharks were formerly worshipped. When the king. or the priests of this divinity imagined that the shark wanted food, they sallied forth with attendants, one of whom carried a lasso, which they threw at random ainongst any crowd, and whoever was eaught was strangled, cut in pieces, and thrown into the sea.
• There are many large boats, with crews of twelve men each, constantly employed in the shark fishery in Kurachee. The value of the fins (Paak, GU.T., HIND.; Iyu sirap, Yu sirap, MALAY ; Soora meen sepputay, TAN.) sent to Bombay varies from Rs. 13,000 to Rs. 18,000 a year. Of this a portion only passes directly into the hands of the fishermen, each boat earning perhaps Rs. 1000 annually, or Rs. 100 for each man. From this falls to be deducted the cost of material and other charges. This trade was noticed by Dr. Boyle in 1842. It Affords on some occasions to Bombay alone, taking fish-maws and shark-fins together, as much as four lakhs of rupees (£40,000), and furnishes the chief means of support to at least 3000 fisher men, or, including their families, to probably not less than 15,000 human beings. One boat
will sometimes capture at a draught as many as a hundred sharks of different sizes, but sometimes they will be a week, sometimes a month, vvithout securing a single fish. The fishermen are very averse to revealing the amount of their captures. Inquiries of this sort are supposed by them to be made exclusively for the purpose of taxation. The great basking shark, or mhor, is always har pooned. It is found floating or asleep near the surface of the water, and is then struck with a harpoon 8 feet long. The fish once struck is allowed to run till tired, and is then pulled in and beaten with clubs till stunned. A large hook is now booked into its eyes or nostrils, or wherever it can be got most easily attached, and by this the shark is towed in-shore. Several boats are requisite for towing. The mhor is often 40, some times 60 feekin length ; the mouth is occasionally 4 feet wide. All other varieties of shark are caught in nets in something like the way in which herrings are caught in Europe. The net is made of strong English whip-cowl, the mesh about 6 inches '; they are generally 6 feet wide, and are from six to eight hundred fathoms, from three quarters to nearly a mile in length. On the one side are floats of wood about 4 feet m' length, at intervIds'of 6 feet ; on the other, pieces of stone. The nuts are sunk in deep water from 80 to 150 feet, well out at sea. They are put in one day and taken out the next, so that they are down two or three thnes a week, according to the state of the weather and success of the fishing. The lesser sharks are occasionally found dead,—the larger ones much exhausted. On being taken home, the fins are cut off and dried on the sands in the sun ; the flesh is cut up in long stripes and salted for food, and the liver is taken out and crushed down for oil. The head, backbone, and entrails are left on the shore to rot, or thrown into the sea, where numberless little sharks are generally on the watch to eat up the remains of their kindred. The fishermen themselves are only concerned in the capture of the sharks. So soon as they are landed they are purchased by Bania merchants, on whose account all the other opera sions aro performed. The Bania collect them in large qnantities, and transmit them to agents in Bombay, by whom they are sold for shipment to China. Not only are the fins of all the ordinary varieties of shark prepared for the market, but those also of the saw-fish, of the cat-fish, and of -some varieties of ray or skate,—the latter, indeed, merges almost insensibly iuto the form of those of the shark. The cat-fish, known in India by the same name as in Britain, has a head very like that of its European congener, from which it differs in all other respects most remarkably. Its skin is of a tawny yellowish-brown, shading from dark brown on the back to dirty-yellow on the belly. It is beautifully covered all over with spots of the shape and size of those of the leopard, similarly arranged. The value of sharks' fins annually exported from Bombay amounts to betwixt a lakh and a half and two lakhs of rupees. The largest fishery •at any given port is probably that of Kurachee, which affords nearly one-tenth of the whole, but the shark fishery is conducted all along the Bombay coast. In Fiji they are said to. be caught by means of a curiously-formed piece of wood, about 4 feet long, and in shape very much like a whale boat, but solid. From a hole in the centre descends a strong cord of twisted rattan, forming a running noose.