Page:Natural History, Fishes.djvu/320

306 of its component species, belong the giants of the race, the Basking Shark (Selachus maximus), thirty-six feet in length, the Blue Shark (Carcharias glaucus), the Fox Shark (C. vulpes), and the dreaded White Shark (C. vulgaris).

Many thrilling anecdotes of the fatal voracity of this last named monster of the deep are on record. One of these is recorded by a painting in Christ's Hospital, London. The late Sir Brooke Watson was swimming at a little distance from a ship, when he saw a Shark making towards him. Struck with terror at its approach, he cried out for assistance. A rope was immediately thrown to him; but even while the men were in the act of drawing him up the ship's side, the ferocious creature darted after him, and at a single snap, tore off his leg.

The horrors inflicted on the miserable sufferers by the shameful traffic in men, during the transit across the Atlantic, are heightened by these ferocious animals. Their instinct apprises them of the probability of prey; the air, tainted with the effluvia of a multitude of human beings crowded together in a tropical climate, probably awakening their vigilance and whetting their appetite. It is affirmed that numbers of Sharks almost invariably attend every slave-ship throughout her voyage, crowding around her stern, awaiting with eager expectation the unceremonious committal to the deep of the numerous wretches who fall victims to suffocation, disease, or despair.

Here dwells the direful Shark. Lured by the scent Of steaming crowds, of rank disease, and death, Behold! he rushing cuts the briny flood, Swift as the gale can bear the ship along;