Harpoon at a Venture

  Another parasitic copepod, Nemesis lamna, was numerous on the gills, where it causes extensive though superficial damage to the filaments, the mucosa being cut up by the parasite and hypertrophied to three times its normal thickness.

  Two species of cestodes of the genus Dinobothrium, one of them new to science, were found in the spiral valve, and have formed the subject of a separate report.

  APPENDIX III

  Controversial Matters

  The detailed findings of Dr Harrison Matthews and Dr Parker are published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 234B, 147, 1950 (Dr Matthews’s paper dealing exhaustively with reproduction), and Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, Vol. 120, Part III, pp. 535–576, “Notes on the Anatomy and Biology of the Basking Shark,” a more general paper by both authors.

  When dealing with a creature as little known as this, points of controversy and disagreement are bound to arise, more especially over questions of field natural history, and I should shirk a scientific obligation if I did not record those points on which I must as a result of personal experience disagree with Dr Matthews’s and Dr Parker’s observations; indeed, Dr Matthews has urged me to do so. On some of these points they have had occasion to modify their views since the publication of these papers, and in particular they have published a supplementary note on the breaching habit in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, Vol. 121, Part II, pp. 461–2.

  In committing to paper opinions at variance with these authorities, I have not trusted to my own memory alone, but have consulted both my written records and all the members of my crew with whom I have been able to get into contact. They have in all cases endorsed my own recollections, and the interested reader should remember how extremely familiar we all became with sharks during those seasons of continuous hunting.

  For convenience I treat these controversial matters under separate headings:

  Dimensions.

  As Matthews and Parker justly point out, there appears to have been much exaggeration about the length of the Basking Shark as recorded in literature, and they fix the adult length at twenty-nine feet. The authority for this limit is the fact that none of the eleven fish that they examined at Soay measured longer than this; and that Watkins, who is quoted as having “been engaged in the shark fishery for many years,” stated that “a length of twenty-nine feet is never exceeded in Scottish waters.” In my opinion these statements are as bold, and as possibly misleading, as the previous over-estimates.

  I believe that the average adult Basking Shark in Hebridean waters would measure about twenty-six feet; that in a catch of a hundred sharks landed without one being lost there would be two or three of thirty feet; and, however improbable it may sound, that there are quite definitely a very few fish that would measure upwards of forty feet.

  When I began fishing for Basking Sharks I over-estimated their length enormously, and I have no doubt that the majority of people who do not become familiar with them continue to do the same. But when one has caught a great number one recognises that a shark is either inside the average variation that one knows or is something exceptional and outside previous experience. In 1946 Watkins bet me that I would not catch a shark of thirty feet, a bet which I accepted and lost; for our largest shark, fairly measured, was twenty-nine feet eight inches, and I only saw one fish that year that I considered to be larger. On September 11, however, while I was away in Glasgow, Bruce lost a shark which I myself have no doubt belonged to that extreme outsize category of which I saw less than a dozen individuals during all my time at sea. Bruce’s own estimate is that the fish was approximately forty feet, but might have been a little less. He wrote:

  Just a line in haste to catch the Lochmor. We have just arrived in here, and I am very sorry and disappointed to tell you that we are just after losing the biggest fish of the season. Nobody’s fault, there was nothing we could do about it. He put up a terrific fight after being three hours on the buoys, and the worst part of it was we had already got the tail-sling on his tail. When he was tied up he gave two or three terrific heaves and broke everything. You wouldn’t have thought any fish could break one of those slings.

  This occurred in the dusk at Courachan. The fish had been shot in daylight, three hours before, and at the time of the shooting the crew had agreed that it was the largest shark that any of them had seen.

  A somewhat similar incident took place a year later. There were two fish following each other closely in line ahead. The rear fish appeared to be of normal size; the leader, on the other hand, was what Tex used to call “monsterious,” the dorsal fin appearing half as big again as that of its follower, which was also riding high in the water. For more than an hour the Sea Leopard manœuvred to get a shot at the leader, before deciding that an average shark was better than none at all and harpooning the rear fish. This shark, which had seemed no more than average to the crew, was in fact the largest ever brought in to the Soay factory, measuring thirty-one feet five inches in a straight line. All are agreed that with this comparison in mind the leading shark cannot have been less than forty feet, and all consider this to be a conservative statement.

  The largest fish that I remember personally was that which broke the three-inch yacht-manilla rope between Uishenish and Lochboisdale, and which I have described on pages 186–8, and again my estimate is of a full forty feet. I am as certain as I can be that these individuals of much greater length than the average do exist and that I have seen them. The fact that they were always “the ones that got away” is due to cause and effect.

  On the question of weight, Matthews and Parker have modified in the present Appendix the impression left by an earlier American observation quoted in their published paper, and I have no doubt that this latest speculative assessment is very much nearer to fact.

  Colour.

  Here my contention is that the fish is not as dark as described in the published papers resulting from the Soay work. Looking down from the foredeck of a boat, the body never looks darker than the water surrounding it, always lighter, and of an umberish colour with darker markings. Only the fins, showing above water, appear blackish, and even these have a distinctly brown tinge. As the shark goes deeper in the water he appears more and more grey, as opposed to brown. I think that on land the mucous secretion from the skin dries to a near-black film, which may have given rise to the present confusion.

  Speed and Breaching.

  The feeding speed is estimated at about two knots, with which I am in general agreement, though where there is a current of water the shark may resist it only sufficiently to remain virtually stationary. It is suggested, however, that a speed of four knots may never be exceeded. I have seen sharks swimming at the surface which the Gannet, with a maximum speed of six knots, would not have overhauled had they not changed direction, and I am certain that when alarmed the fish can reach at least fifteen knots for a short distance. Dan MacGillivray, a cautious and reliable man with a great deal of experience, considers that some sharks occasionally reach twenty knots as they sound after being harpooned, though this is exceptional.

  On the question of breaching, I read with near-incredulity the following paragraph in Proc. Zool. London, Vol. 120, Part III:

  It is alleged that the Basking Shark sometimes leaps from the water, so that the whole body is brought clear, and that it falls back again with a tremendous splash, an action similar to the breaching of whales. From a consideration of the usual habits of this fish, however, it appears very improbable that this statement is correct…. It is probable that the stories of Basking Sharks breaching are founded upon confusion with the larger dolphins or, even more probably, with the Thresher Shark which breaches in the most spectacular way, and might well cause a mistake if seen at a distance when Basking Sharks were numerous close to the observer.

  To men who had watched this action as often and at such close quarters as we had, this statement seemed simply ludicrous. To us it was as if some scientist wrote that
it was alleged that dogs in London sometimes lifted their legs against lamp-posts, but that this was probably due to confusion with one of the rarer species of wolf, that did in fact so lift their legs in a most spectacular manner. I am glad to say that combined testimony has now convinced Dr Matthews that Basking Sharks really do breach, and he has published a supplementary note unreservedly withdrawing the original statement.

  The Basking Habit.

  From the summary of the same publication, I quote:

  The basking habit, in which the first dorsal fin and the tip of the tail project above the surface of the water is probably adopted when the concentration of plankton is great near the surface; it is likely that feeding also takes place when the fish are completely submerged. The basking habit is probably correlated also with the breeding behaviour of the fish.

  I must say at once that, tempting though both these theories are, they accord in no way with my own observations. The suggestion that basking is correlated with breeding behaviour is, I think, completely precluded by the fact that sharks appear to bask from birth onward, and during all their sexually immature years. After the most conscientious examination, we could relate the appearance of the sharks at the surface to no constant factor. Had we been able to do so it would have been a major step towards the success of the venture.

  Again and again the plankton-net returned a concentrated sample from the first fathom when no sharks were visible, though we knew them to be in the area; again and again we would obtain a weak plankton sample from near to the surface when sharks were up. I feel convinced that there is some at present unconsidered determining factor that is responsible for bringing large numbers of fish to the surface over an area of a mile or more and within a few minutes of each other. Further, all our experience tended to show that rarely if ever are all sharks of a shoal visible at once, which may suggest that not all are receiving the same stimulus. We tried in vain to relate these appearances to weather (temperature, wind-force, humidity, light), to the state of the tide, to the concentration of plankton in the surface fathom of water, and I must consider that we are not yet in a state of knowledge to offer any explanation of the basking habit.

  Form of Head and Snout in the Young.

  With the permission of the Zoological Society I reprint this paragraph from the Notes in its entirety.

  Newly born Basking sharks have never been examined but immature examples from 5 ft. 5 in. to 15 ft. have been reported upon from time to time. In many of these reports specimens of less than about 12 ft. are described as having a pointed prominence or beak (one author describes it as “a protuberance resembling a small rhinoceros horn”) at the tip of the snout, or a narrow rostrum preceding a very broad, flattened pharyngeal region. Examples are to be found in Cornish (1870; 9 ft.), Pavesi (1876; 9 ft. 8½ in.), Pavesi (1876; 10 ft. 8 in.), Gervais (1876; 12 ft.), Carazzi (1904; 11 ft. 2 in.), de Buen (1925; ?), Platt (1937; 12 ft. 7 in.), and Bigelow and Schroeder (1948; 12 ft.). Professor Schroeder has also very kindly informed us (in litt. 1950) that both a 10 ft. specimen washed ashore in Massachusetts Bay about 1947 and a 9 ft. specimen seen at Woods Hole in 1948 had the “proboscis like” form of snout. PI. VIII, fig. 26 shows this shape in a specimen caught on June 7, 1950, in a mackerel drifter’s net in the English Channel at a position 3 miles south of Portobello (55° 44 N. × 0° 2 E. approx.). The exact dimensions of this fish are not available but, to judge from the photographs, it must have measured between 7 and 8 ft. Bigelow and Schroeder (1948, p. 150) state that a transition to the adult type of snout takes place at lengths of 12–16 ft. Other authors, however, make no mention of any such prominence, e.g. the 9 ft. 4 in. specimen caught in Cullen, Banffshire, in 1935 (Anon., Scottish Naturalist, 1935), and a sketch made by Dr Trewavas of a specimen between 11 and 12 ft. long that was stranded near Penzance in 1921 or 1922, also shows no protuberance but a subconical, rather sharply pointed snout. It seems certain that the form of snout in the juvenile is different from that of the adult, but the protuberant appearance appears to be variable and may well be partly produced by shrinkage and collapse of the flabby ampullary mass that lies above the rostral cartilage. That shrinkage can produce such a result is evidenced by the photographs reproduced as Pl. IV, figs. 10 and 11, which show a terminal horn-like prominence on the end of the snout of a young Squalus acanthias that had been allowed to become partly desiccated. Text-fig. 3 shows the outlines of some of the juvenile heads for comparison with this artificially produced condition. The sudden increase of girth at the level of the pharyngeal region, which has also been described and figured as a juvenile character, is probably entirely due to distortion; when taken from the water these fish naturally sag considerably under their own weight, and the pharyngeal and branchial regions are especially distorted; this distortion is clearly shown in Pl. VIII, fig. 26. Distortions of this nature, together with the juvenile form of snout have, in the past, led to the description of different “species” and “genera”. Couch (1868), for instance, was misled in this way, by Pavesi (1874), and Day (1880–84) recognized the true nature of the described differences; the latter observes that “should the mouth of one of these fish be left open by inserting a piece of wood between the jaws, the peculiar appearance as described by Couch in Polyprosopus is obtained” and adds “this condition or appearance of the snout has been observed by Sir T. Browne so long ago as 1662”.

  The outline of the head in young Basking Sharks (Fig. 3).

  Reproduced by kind permission from The Proceedings of the Zoological Society.

  Whereas in Fig. 3 referred to, d, e, and f are clearly the result of shrinkage and distortion, I should consider a, b, and c to be all within the range of my own observation of the living or freshly killed fish. The protuberance on the end of the snout varies in inverse ratio to the length of the fish, being most pronounced in the smallest I have seen. These were not measured, but I should estimate their length at seven to eight feet. Photographs 68 and 69 show a smaller proboscis on a fish measuring fourteen feet seven inches, in which any possibility of distortion may be dismissed, since the fish was still displaying muscular movement when photographed. I think that in this connection the evidence of the earlier writers should not be discounted.

  “The one that got away was this long!”

  From a postcard from Hartley, 1945.

  Acknowledgements

  DURING the days of activity and adventure which this book describes it was not easy for me to take as many photographs as I could have wished; indeed the moments I should have been most anxious to record were often those during which it was impossible to spare thought for anything but the work on hand.

  I am therefore most grateful to my visitors to the boats and the Island who have very kindly given me permission to use the photographs which they took, and have so helped to fill gaps in the pictorial record. Photographs 15, 16, 17, 24, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 40, 45, 47, 54, 57 and 60 were taken by Captain Hamish Pelham-Burn during several visits to the Sea Leopard in the summer of 1946; photographs 10 and 72 by Niall Rankin, during my early days of experiment; photographs 4, 9, 61, 66 and 75 by Ronald Murdoch Macdonald, of Soay; photograph 11 by Raef Payne; photographs 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 36, 37, 39, 41, 42, 44, 48, 50, 52, 53, 55, 56, 58, 59, 62, 63, 64, 65, 68, 69, 76, 77, 79, 80, 81 and 82 were taken by Raymond Kleboe during a visit to the boats and factory, and are reproduced here by permission of Picture Post Library.

  I am also indebted to the Editor of Country Life for allowing me to reprint certain paragraphs in Chapter II which were first written for an article in that magazine.

  The quotations from poems are printed by permission of the authors and publishers concerned. I am indebted to William Empson and Messrs Chatto and Windus for the lines from Aubade on page 7; to Louis MacNeice and Messrs Faber and Faber for the quotation from Train to Dublin on page 160; to the same author and Messrs Longmans Green for the two verses on pages 272–3; to T. S. Eliot and Messrs Faber and Faber for the quotations from Eas
t Coker on page 177; and to Wilfrid Gibson for the passage from The Ice-Cart on pages 177–8.

  To Dr Harrison Matthews, Scientific Director of the Zoological Society, and to Dr Parker, Keeper of Zoology at the British Museum (Natural History), who together carried out unique scientific research on the Basking Shark at Soay in 1947, I express my deep appreciation both for the précis of their work contained in Appendix II, and for the encouragement they have given me to record views differing from their own. For portions of this Appendix which have appeared in the journals of learned societies I am indebted to the Royal Society and the Zoological Society of London for permission to reprint.

  My thanks go also to Dr Fraser, of the British Museum (Natural History), for much kind help and advice in the preparation of the section of Appendix I which deals with the whales; and lastly to all those who shared with me the adventures I describe.

  Gavin Maxwell was born in the south-west of Scotland and was educated at a succession of schools before taking a degree in Estate Management at Oxford. He served with the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War, after which he bought the island of Soay. As well as his famous otter books – Ring of Bright Water and The Rocks Remain – he also wrote the critically acclaimed People of the Reeds, an account of the marsh Arabs of southern Iraq. He died in 1969.

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