are very large.
All are voracious and ugly customers to tackle.

The way those sharks gobbled up those ducks was a sight to behold. They
were disposed of in three minutes. The Captain was terribly angry. He
tried to revenge himself by peppering the sharks with shot, but it is
doubtful if the leaden pellets made the slightest impression on their
tough hides, even if he succeeded in hitting them.

The boat pulled back to the ship, and was hoisted to the davits. The
calm continued. Four of the sharks came up alongside, eager for more
ducks. Such appetizing fare was seldom theirs. Stray garbage from
passing ships, flotsam from the forecastle, composed the diet upon which
they usually depended in addition to their steady prey of fish. The
Captain brooded over the loss of his ducks for some time. Then he made
up his mind to have a little shark-fishing, and thus combine revenge and
recreation.

He sent below for a brand-new shark-hook with a sharp and cruel barb. To
the ring of the hook was attached a stout chain a fathom long. A shark's
teeth are so sharp and strong that they can bite through the stoutest
rope with singular ease. To the end of the chain the skipper bent on a
two-and-a-half-inch manilla line, and having impaled a four-pound piece
of pork on the hook, hove it overboard, with the remark that he intended
to have a slice of fresh shark for supper.

The sharks were playing about the rudder on the lookout for any stray
trifles that might come along their way from a sailor down to a beef
bone. They are not at all fastidious or dainty. It was my first
experience of shark-fishing, and I was a keen and interested observer.
The water was so clear that I could watch every motion of the four
monsters as they swam slowly about, each one attended by his own
particular body-guard of pilot-fish--pretty little creatures shaped
something like perch, with blue vertical stripes. Ichthyologists declare
that these fish attend the shark for the purpose of preying upon the
parasites that infest him. This may be a true explanation, but I cannot
understand how it is that a hungry deep-sea shark, that will snap up
anything living or dead, permits these plump little fish to play
unscathed about his enormous jaws. There are other curious things about
these pilot-fish that naturalists cannot explain. They only attach
themselves to the pelagic species found in deep water; there are always
five or seven of them to each shark, never an eve