something of the sea-people a sailing-ship must be chosen, the
slower the better, one wherein may be felt to its fullest extent
by the mindless, sightless passenger the “intolerable tedium of a
long voyage.” In such a ship as this the student of marine natural
history, provided he be not responsible to stern owners for the
length of his passage, will welcome with great delight the solemn
hush of the calm, when the windless dome above him is filled with
perfect peace, and the shining circle upon which he floats is like
the pupil of God’s eye. Then, leaning over the taffrail, looking
earnestly down into the crystalline blue, you may see the bottom of
the ship without visible support as if poised in a sky of deeper
blue and more limpid atmosphere. The parasitic life that has already
attached itself to the vessel is all busy living. Barnacles with
their long, glutinous feet-stalks waving in imperceptible motion, are
expanding from between their shells delicate fringes of brown, that,
all eyes to see and hands to hold, allow nothing that can feed them
to pass them by. And as they flex themselves inward with the supplies
they have drawn from the apparently barren water, you can fancy that
the pearly whiteness of the shells gleams with a brighter lustre as
of satisfaction. The dull-hued limpets, like pustules breaking out
upon the ship’s sheathing, may also be discerned, but less easily,
because they have such a neutral tint, and love to nestle amongst a
tangle of dank, deep-green sea-moss, that, except where the light
from above breaks obliquely down upon it, looks almost black.
But a little patient watching will reveal a set of tiny arms
forth-darting from the irregular opening in the apex of each
limpet-cone. They, too, are busy continually, arresting every morsel,
invisible to feeble human sight, that comes within their reach, and
passing it within for the up-keep of the compact, self-contained
residence. And there, can it be possible, at all this distance from
land? It is not only possible but undeniable that there is a _crab_,
an impudent, inquisitive little tangle of prying claws surrounding
a disc about the size of a shilling. He strolls about in leisurely
fashion, but making a track at all sorts of angles, among the living
fixtures, skirting each barnacle or limpet with a ludicrous air of
contempt, as it seems. You can almost imagine him saying: “I never
saw such a lot of dead-an’-alive ornaments in my life. Say! how
d’you like stoppin’ in the same old spot for ever an’ ever?” But,
impervious to his rudeness, the busy creatures never cease their one
set of movements, utterly ignoring his very existence. You cannot
help but wonder what becomes of that little crab when the ship begins
to move, for you know that he can’t possibly hold on against the
tremendous brushing past of the water. He isn’t built for that.
The other parasites, whether animal or vegetable, have, you notice,
been busy for who shall say how long adapting themselves to every
condition of their dependent life, so that now, whatever motion
be made by the ship, they present to the onrush of the water just
the right angle of surface that will allow it to slip over them
easily, while at the same time they are always in a position to
levy contributions. There is a puzzling lead-coloured streak along
the copper near the keel to which your eye returns again and again,
for although it will persist in looking like a place whence a strip
of sheathing has been torn, there is yet a suggestion of quivering
life about it which is certainly not the tremulous outline given to
every inanimate object under water. Suddenly your doubts are set at
rest--the mystery is solved. The steward has cast over the side some
fragments of food that settle slowly downwards, turning over and
over as they sink and catching the diffused light at every point,
so that they sparkle like gems. As they pass the almost motionless
keel the leaden-looking streak suddenly detaches itself, and, almost
startlingly revealed as a graceful fish, intercepts and swallows
those morsels one after the other. You fetch a few more fragments,
and, dropping them one by one, entice your new acquaintance nearer
the surface, so that you may admire the easy grace of every movement,
and study at your leisure the result of this creature’s development
along certain lines of inventiveness.
It is a _Remora_, or “sucker,” a species of shark that never exceed
a dozen pounds in weight. Having all the shark’s usual qualities
of slothfulness, voracity, and timorousness, it is prevented from
becoming ferocious also by its limitations of size and the feebleness
of its teeth. And as it would be hopeless for it to attempt to prey
upon other fish while they are alive, from its lack of the requisite
speed as well as from the scarcity of fish of sufficiently small size
in the deep waters which are its abiding-place, it has developed a
parasitic habit, which saves it a whole world of trouble by insuring
its protection, economising exertion, and keeping it in the midst
of a plentiful food-supply. All these objects are attained in the
simplest manner possible, aided by an unfailing instinct guiding the
creature in its selection of an involuntary host.
On the top of its head, which is perfectly flat, it has developed
an arrangement which has, perhaps, the most artificial appearance
of anything found in animated Nature. It is in plan an oblong oval,
with a line running along its middle, to which other diagonal lines,
perfectly parallel to each other, extend from the outer edge. The
whole thing is curiously like the non-slipping tread moulded upon the
soles of many lawn-tennis shoes. This strangely patterned contrivance
is really an adhesive attachment of such strength that, when by its
means the fish is holding on to any plane surface, it is impossible
to drag the body away, except by almost tearing the fish in half. Yet
by the flexing of some simple muscles the fish can release its body
instantly, or as instantly re-attach itself. Of course, it always
adheres to its host with its head pointing in the same direction as
the host usually travels, because in that manner the pressure of
the water assists the grip of the sucker and keeps the whole body
lying flatly close to whatever is carrying it along. In this position
it can perform all the natural functions. Its wide mouth gapes;
its eyes, set one on either side of its flattened head, take in a
most comprehensive view of the prospect, so that nothing having the
appearance of edibility can pass that way without being seen and,
if the speed of its host admits, immediately investigated. Thus its
sociability is obviously of the most selfish kind. It sticketh closer
than a brother, but affection for its protecting companion forms no
part of its programme. Its number is, emphatically, One.
I have used the word “host” intentionally, because the remora does
not by any means limit its company to ships. It is exceedingly fond
of attaching itself to the body of a whale, and also to some of the
larger sharks. Indeed, it goes a step further than mere outward
attachment in the latter case, because well-authenticated instances
are recorded where several suckers have been found clinging to a
huge shark’s palate. This is another stage on the way to perfect
parasitism, because under such circumstances these daring lodgers
needed not to detach themselves any more. They had only to intercept
sufficient food for their wants on its way from the front door to
the interior departments. I have also seen them clinging to the jaw
of a sperm whale, but that jaw was not in working order. It was bent
outwards at right angles to the body, and afforded harbourage to a
most comprehensive collection of parasites, barnacles especially,
giving the front elevation of that whale an appearance utterly unlike
anything with life.
But John Chinaman has outwitted the superlatively lazy remora. By
what one must regard as a triumph of ingenuity he has succeeded
in converting the very means whereby this born-tired fish usually
escapes all necessity for energy into an instrument for obtaining
gain for other people. The mode is as follows: First catch your
remora. No difficulty here. A hook and line of the simplest, a bait
of almost anything that looks eatable lowered by the side of a ship,
and if there be a sucker hidden there he will be after the lure
instantly. The only skill necessary is to haul him up swiftly when he
bites, because if he be allowed to get hold of the ship again you may
pull the hook out of his jaws, but you will not succeed in detaching
him. Having caught a remora, the fisherman fastens a brass ring
closely round its body, just at its smallest part before the spread
of the tail. To this he attaches a long, fine, and strong line. He
then departs for the turtle grounds with his prisoner. Arriving there
he confines himself to keeping the remora away from the bottom of his
boat by means of a bamboo. Of course the captive gets very tired, and
no turtle can pass within range of him without his hanging on to that
turtle for a rest. The moment he does so the turtle’s fate is sealed.
Struggle how he may, he cannot shake loose the tenacious grip of the
sucker, and the stolid yellow man in the sampan has only to haul in
upon the line to bring that unwilling turtle within range of his
hands and lift him into the boat. And this ingenious utilisation of
the sucker’s well-known peculiarity has also commended itself to the
semi-barbarous fishermen of the East African littoral, who are not
otherwise notable for either ingenuity or enterprise.
Before we dismiss the remora to his beloved rest again it is worthy
of notice that he himself gives unwilling hospitality to another
sociable creature. It is a little crustacean, rather like an
exaggerated woodlouse, but without the same power of curling itself
into a ball. It is of a pearly white colour, very sluggish in its
movements, but with tenacious hooks upon its many legs it holds on
securely to the inside of the sucker’s mouth near the gill-slits,
being there provided with all the needs of its existence, without
the slightest effort of its own. Its chief interest to naturalists
lies in its strange likeness to the fossil trilobites so plentifully
scattered among various geological strata.
But while you have been watching the remora a visitor from the vast
openness around has arrived, as if glad of the society afforded by
the ship. Yet in this case the idea seems a fond conceit, because
the new-comer is only a “jelly-fish,” or “Medusa.” It is really an
abuse of language to use the word “fish” in connection with such an
almost impalpable entity as the Medusa, because while a fish is an
animal high up the scale of the vertebrata, a Medusa is almost at
the bottom of the list of created things. When floating in the sea
it is an exceedingly pretty object, with its clear, mushroom-shaped
disc uppermost, and long fringe of feathery filaments, sometimes
delicately coloured, waving gracefully beneath with each pulsation of
the whole mass. It has no power of independent locomotion, no--but,
there, it is not easy to say what it _has_ got, since if you haul one
up in a bucket and lay it on deck in the sun, it will melt entirely
away, leaving not a trace behind except two or three tiny morsels of
foreign matter which did not belong to its organism at all. Yet if
one of these masses of jelly comes into contact with your bare skin
it stings like a nettle, for it secretes, in some mysterious way,
an acrid fluid that serves it instead of many organs possessed by
further advanced creatures. As the present subject passes beneath
your gaze you notice quite a little cluster of tiny fish smaller even
than full-grown tittlebats, perhaps a dozen or so, who look strangely
forlorn in the middle of the ocean. It may be that this sense of
loneliness leads them to seek the shelter of something larger than
themselves, something which will be a sort of rallying-point in such
a wide world of waters.
Perhaps the lovely streamers dangling have aroused their curiosity,
but, whatever the motive, you see the little group, huddled round the
Medusa, popping in and out from the edge of the disc, through which
you can plainly see them as they pass beneath. It is quite pretty to
watch those innocent games of the sportive little fish, but presently
you notice that one of them doesn’t play any more. He is entangled
among those elegant fringes and hangs like a little silver streak,
brightening and fading as it is turned by the pulsatory movement of
the Medusa. And if you could watch it long enough you would see it
gradually disappear, absorbed into the jelly-like substance by the
solvent secreted by the Medusa for that purpose. Still unconscious of
their companion’s fate, the other little victims continue to play in
that treacherous neighbourhood, voluntarily supplying the needs of
an organism immeasurably beneath them in the sum-total of all those
details that go to make up conscious life.
Closely gathered about the rudder and stern-post is another group
of larger fish, the several individuals being from 4 in. to 8 in.
long, and most elegant in shape and colour. They evidently seek the
ship for protection, for they scarcely ever leave her vicinity for
more than 2 ft. or 3 ft. If one of them does dart away that distance
after some, to you, imperceptible morsel of food, it is back again
in a flash, sidling up to her sheathing closer than ever, as if
dreadfully alarmed at its own temerity. A small hook baited with a
fragment of meat will enable you to catch one if only you can get
it to fall close enough to the rudder--no easy matter, because of
the great overhang of the stern. In the old-fashioned ships, where
the rudder-head moved in a huge cavity called the rudder-trunk, I
have often caught them by dropping my hook down there, and very
sweet-eating little fish they were. Sailors call them “rudder-fish,”
a trivial name derived from their well-known habit, but they are
really a species of “caranx,” and akin to the mackerel tribe, which
has so many representatives among deep-water fish. They are, perhaps,
the most sociable of all the fish that visit a ship far out at sea;
but they present the same problem that the crab did a little while
ago: What becomes of them when a breeze springs up and the vessel
puts on speed?
I have often watched them at the beginning of a breeze, swimming
steadily along by the side of the stern-post, so as to be clear of
the eddies raised by the rudder; but it was always evident that a
rate of over three knots would leave them astern very soon. Not less
curious is the speculation as to whence they come so opportunely.
There seems to be very few of them, yet an hour or two’s calm nearly
always shows a little company of them cowering in their accustomed
place. As you watch them wonderingly, a broad blaze of reflected
light draws your attention to the splendid shape of a dolphin gliding
past and exposing the silver shield of his side to the sun’s rays,
which radiate from it with an almost unbearable glare. At that
instant every one of the little fish beneath you gather into one
compact bunch, so close to the stern-post that they look as if part
of it. When they can no longer keep up with the ship’s protecting
bulk how do they escape the jaws of such beautiful ravenous monsters
as that which has just passed? The swift flying-fish cannot do so,
even with the swallow-like speed that he possesses and the power
of skimming through the air for a thousand yards at a flight. What
chance, then, can our shrinking little companions possibly have,
or how do they survive amidst so many enemies? It is an unsolvable
mystery.
What is this cold grey shadow stealing along through the bright
blue water by the keel? A shark, and a big one too. No one doubts
the reason for _his_ sociability; in fact, he (or she) is credited
by most sailors with a most uncanny knowledge of what is going on
aboard any ship he chooses to honour with his company. We need not be
so foolish as to believe any of these childish stories, especially
when the obvious explanation lies so closely on the surface. Heredity
accounts for a great many things that have long been credited with
supernatural origins, and the shark’s attachment to the society of
ships is so plainly hereditary that the slightest thought upon the
subject will convince any unbiased person of the reasonableness of
the explanation. For many generations the shark, born scavenger that
he is, has learned to associate the huge shadow cast by a ship with
food, not perhaps in such mountainous abundance as that provided by
the carcass of a dead whale, but still scattering savoury morsels at
fairly regular intervals. From its earliest days--when, darting in
and out of its mother’s capacious jaws, it has shared in the spoil
descending from passing ships--to the end of what is often a very
long life, ships and food are inseparably associated in whatever
answers to its mind in the shark. Man, alive or dead, always makes
a welcome change of diet to a fish that, by reason of his build, is
unable to prey upon other fish as do the rest of his neighbours.
As I have said elsewhere, the shark eats man because man is easy to
catch, not because he likes man’s flesh better than any other form
of food, as many landsmen and even sailors believe. But the shark
is only able to gratify his sociable instincts in calms or very
light airs. He is far too slothful, too constitutionally averse to
exertion, to expend his energies in the endeavour to keep up with
a ship going at even a moderate rate of speed. Let the wind drop,
however, and in few parts of the sea will you be without a visit from
a shark for many hours. In one vessel that I sailed in the skipper
had such a delicate nose that he could not bear the stench of the
water in which the day’s allowance of salt meat had been steeped to
get some of the pickle out of it. So he ordered a strong net to be
made of small rope, and into this the meat was put, the net secured
to a stout line, and hung over the stern just low enough to dip every
time the vessel curtsied. The plan answered admirably for some time,
until one night the wind fell to a calm, and presently the man at the
wheel heard a great splash behind him. He rushed to the taffrail and
looked over, just in time to see the darkness beneath all aglow with
phosphorescence, showing that some unusual agitation had recently
taken place. He ran to the net-lanyard, and, taking a good pull, fell
backward on deck, for there was nothing fast to it. Net and meat were
gone. The skipper was much vexed, of course, that the net hadn’t
been hauled up a little higher when it fell calm, for, as he told
the mate, anybody ought to know that 30 lbs. of salt pork dangling
overboard in a calm was enough to call a shark up from a hundred
miles away.
As this particular shark, now sliding stealthily along the keel
towards the stern, becomes more clearly visible, you notice what
looks at first like a bright blue patch on top of his head. But,
strange to say, it is not fixed; it shifts from side to side,
backwards and forwards, until, as the big fish rises higher, you make
it out to be the pretty little caranx that shares with the crocodile
and buffalo birds the reputation of being the closest possible
companion and chum of so strangely diverse an animal to himself. And
now we are on debatable ground, for this question of the sociability
of the pilot-fish with the shark has been most hotly argued. And
perhaps, like the cognate question of the flight of flying-fish, it
is too much to hope that any amount of first-hand testimony will
avail to settle it now. Still, if a man will but honestly state
what he has _seen_, not once, but many times repeated, his evidence
ought to have some weight in the settlement of even the most vexed
questions. Does the pilot-fish love the shark? Does it even know
that the shark _is_ a shark, a slow, short-sighted, undiscriminating
creature whose chief characteristic is that of never-satisfied
hunger? In short, does the pilot-fish attach itself to the shark as
a pilot, with a definite object in view, or is the attachment merely
the result of accident? Let us see.
Here is a big shark-hook, upon which we stick a mass of fat pork two
or three pounds in weight. Fastening a stout rope to it, we drop it
over the stern with a splash. The eddies have no sooner smoothed away
than we see the brilliant little blue and gold pilot-fish coming
towards our bait at such speed that we can hardly detect the lateral
vibrations of his tail. Round and round the bait he goes, evidently
in a high state of excitement, and next moment he has darted off
again as rapidly as he came. He reaches the shark, touches him with
his head on the nose, and comes whizzing back again to the bait,
followed sedately by the dull-coloured monster. As if impatient of
his huge companion’s slowness he keeps oscillating between him and
the bait until the shark has reached it and, without hesitation,
has turned upon his back to seize it, if such a verb can be used to
denote the deliberate way in which that gaping crescent of a mouth
enfolds the lump of pork. Nothing, you think, can increase the
excitement of the little attendant now. He seems ubiquitous, flashing
all round the shark’s jaws as if there were twenty of him at least.
But when half-a-dozen men, “tailing on” to the rope, drag the shark
slowly upward out of the sea, the faithful little pilot seems to go
frantic with--what shall we call it?--dread of losing his protector,
affection, anger, who can tell?
The fact remains that during the whole time occupied in hauling the
huge writhing carcass of the shark up out of the water the pilot-fish
never ceases its distracted upward leaping against the body of its
departing companion. And after the shark has been hauled quite clear
of the water the bereaved pilot darts disconsolately to and fro about
the rudder as if in utter bewilderment at its great loss. For as
long as the calm continues, or until another shark makes his or her
appearance, that faithful little fish will still hover around, every
splash made in the water bringing it at top speed to the spot as if
it thought that its friend had just returned.
No doubt there is a mutual benefit in the undoubted alliance between
pilot-fish and shark, for I have seen a pilot-fish take refuge, along
with a female shark’s tiny brood, within the parent’s mouth at the
approach of a school of predatory fish, while it is only reasonable
to suppose, what has often been proved to be the fact, that in
guiding the shark to food the pilot also has its modest share of the
feast. It is quite true that the pilot-fish will for a time attach
itself to a boat when its companion has been killed. Again and again
I have noticed this on a whaling voyage, where more sharks are killed
in one day while cutting in a whale than many sailors see during
their whole lives.
Hitherto we have only considered those inhabitants of the deep sea
that forgather with a ship during a calm. Not that the enumeration
of them is exhausted, by any means, for during long-persisting
calms, as I have often recorded elsewhere, many queer denizens of
the middle depths of ocean are tempted by the general stagnation
to come gradually to the surface and visit the unfamiliar light.
Considerations of space preclude my dealing with many of these
infrequent visitors to the upper strata of the sea, but I cannot
refrain from mention of one or two that have come under my notice at
different times. One especially I tried for two days to inveigle by
various means, for I thought (and still think) that a stranger fish
was never bottled in any museum than he was. He was sociable enough,
too. I dare say his peculiar appearance was dead against his scraping
an acquaintance with any ordinary-looking fish, who, in spite of
their well-known curiosity, might well be excused from chumming up
with any such “sport” as he undoubtedly was. He was about 18 in.
long, with a head much like a gurnard and a tapering body resembling
closely in its contour that of a cod. So that as far as his shape
went there was nothing particularly _outré_ in his appearance. But he
was bright green in colour--at least, the ground of his colour-scheme
was bright green. He was dotted profusely with glaring crimson spots
about the size of a sixpence. And from the centre of each of these
spots sprang a brilliant blue tassel upon a yellow stalk about an
inch long. All his fins--and he had certainly double the usual
allowance--were also fringed extensively with blue filaments, which
kept fluttering and waving continually, even when he lay perfectly
motionless, as if they were all nerves. His tail was a wonderful
organ more than twice as large as his size warranted, and fringed, of
course, as all his other fins were, only more so. His eyes were very
large and inexpressive, dead-looking in fact, reminding me of eyes
that had been boiled. But over each of them protruded a sort of horn
of bright yellow colour for about two inches, at the end of which
dangled a copious tassel of blue that seemed to obscure the uncanny
creature’s vision completely.