nd tails for export to Sydney, and thence to
China, where they command a price ranging from 6d. to 1s. 6d. per pound,
according to quality.

The lagoon sharks are of a different species to the short, thick,
wide-jawed "man-eaters," although they are equally dangerous at night
time as the deep-sea prowlers. The present writer was for a long time
engaged with a native crew in the shark-catching industry in the North
Pacific, and therefore had every opportunity of studying Jack Shark and
his manners.

On Providence Lagoon (the Ujilong of the natives), once the secret
rendezvous of the notorious Captain "Bully" Hayes and his associate
adventurer, Captain Ben Peese, I have, at low tide, stood on the edge of
the coral reef on one side of South Passage, and gazed in astonishment
at the extraordinary numbers of sharks entering the lagoon for their
nightly onslaught on the vast bodies of fish with which the water
teems. They came on in droves, like sheep, in scores at first, then
in hundreds, and then in packed masses, their sharp, black-tipped fins
stretching from one side of the passage to the other. As they gained the
inside of the lagoon they branched off, some to right and left, others
swimming straight on towards the sandy beaches of the chain of islets.
From where I stood I could have killed scores of them with a whale
lance, or even a club, for they were packed so closely that they
literally scraped against the coral walls of the passage; and some
Gilbert Islanders who were with me amused themselves by seizing several
by their tails and dragging them out upon the reef. They were nearly all
of the same size, about seven feet, with long slender bodies, and their
markings, shape, and general appearance were those of the shark called
by the Samoans _moemoeao_ ("sleeps all day"), though not much more than
half their length. The Gilbert Islanders informed me that this species
were also _bakwa mata te ao_ (sleepers by day) at certain seasons of
the year, but usually sought their prey by night at all times; and a few
months later I had an opportunity afforded me of seeing some hundreds of
them asleep. This was outside the barrier reef of the little island of
Ailuk, in the Marshall Group. We were endeavouring to find and recover
a lost anchor, and were drifting along in a boat in about six fathoms of
water; there was not a breath of wind, and consequently we had no need
to use water glasses, for even minute objects could be very