ABOUT SHARKS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 59, 3 April 1909, Page 4

ABOUT SHARKS.

PERILS AND il'liSTS OF TILE SEA. Tlin < r reat peril and pest of tropical waters °is the sliavk. Never no as he lives will the writer forget his first experience of a shark. Years ago i< was staying at Ormond, oil the Atlantic const of Florida, the same beach where the <*reat motor speed contents are now held? Early on the first morning of his arrival lie * wont down to hathe, and, passing through the breakers 011 the bar. swam out to sea. Suddenly the familiar triangular fin appeared not fifty vards away, and then the whole back of a shark showed through the broken water. It was not a very large shark, and probably >iuite harmless, but the writer broke liis own and most otliei existing swimming records back to the ton*. . i i ■ Yet a shark's bark, so to speak, is worse than its bite. There has never been a ease of a man being taken by •1 shark on the Atlantic coast of Florida nurtli oi Discayne Bay; and though the "iilf t'aii'lv ewarnis with tlu* uglj binto, it is <\U> enouirh 1" hatho in a erovvu iim l shore. Hut the authorities will liol let you dive oil the end of a steamship pier on that ooast, ami nglitly SO. Vei'V large sharks are sometime, wiughi iu ISritish wateis. I'ive . v a<'o li-hernieii from Kuwait- louud m their nefs a blue sliark 10ft :im m 'em'tli, which had inside its stomaln three smaller sharks, eacli about four feet in length. Occasionally a blue slunk is seen or caught on the Cornish coast; but they are very rare, and certain alarmist letters which have appealed tn London daily papers oil Hie subject o sharks and bathers are quite unjustified hv facts. ,

'The strangest shark story which ever caine to the writer's ears was of a shark that charged a steamer. This was. 111 (lucetl Charlotte's Sound, and an account of the incident appeared in a Vancouver naiier. The captain of tlie steam", which was a small crait of only fitly tons or -so. saw th« shark on the surface of the port bow, and could not resist the temptation of taking a shot at it with his ride. lie hit bis maris, whereupon the 111011—said to have been fully twenty feet in lcn"th— deliberately charged the steamer. The boat quivered from stem to stern, and the captain said afterwards that it was like striking a rock. After this display of temper Master Shark had had enough of it, and sank out of sight.