A Shark Diet.

Writing of our native friends somehow automatically brought up a thought or two about the menu of the Maori at home, which has been enlarged considerably by the embarkation of many tribes on regular farming industry after the modern manner. Nevertheless, for all the pleasing table items introduced by the pakeha, the son of the soil prefers often the kai of his ancestors, and one of these stable items is fish, and one of the most acceptable fish to the Maori palate is shark.

A shark-catching excursion is just as popular among the coastwise tribes as a swordfishing campaign is among the Zane Greys of the world.

Up Auckland way in the good summer time, sailing about the Hauraki Gulf, we used to see a Maori party returing from the fishing grounds in a cutter or a scow, a little shipload of them, and if shark had been caught in any quantity we would see the rigging hung with them, delicately perfuming the sea-breeze. But the beach was the place where you'd get the full strength of Mr. Shark, the beach where a few hundred of them were hung on stages to sun-dry for the populace. One of my Waikato Heads native acquaintances once confided to me that dried shark was a noble and satisfying diet, it made a man strong and brave, and it was withal a food that he could taste for three days afterwards.