OCEAN LIFE.—THE HARVEST OF THE SEA (_concluded_).
The _Clupedæ_—The Herring—Its Cabalistic Marks—A Warning to
Royalty—The “Great Fishery”—Modes of Fishing—A Night with the Wick
Fishermen—Suicidal Fish—The Value of Deep‐sea Fisheries—Report of
the Commissioners—Fecundity of the Herring—No fear of Fish
Famine—The Shad—The Sprat—The Cornish Pilchard Fisheries—The
“Huer”—Raising the “Tuck”—A Grand Harvest—Gigantic
Holibut—Newfoundland Cod Fisheries—Brutalities of Tunny
Fishing—The Mackerel—Its Courage, and Love of Man—Garum Sauce—The
formidable Sword‐fish—Fishing by Torchlight—Sword through a Ship’s
side—General Remarks on Fish—Fish Life—Conversation—Musical
Fish—Pleasures and Excitements—Do Fish sleep?
A great and important group of the bony fish is comprised under the family
name _Clupedæ_. It includes such useful fish as the herring, pilchard,
shad, and anchovy. The family is as interesting to the merchant as to the
gastronomist.
The herring hardly needs description here, but it may just be remarked,
_en passant_, that its back, indigo‐coloured after death, is greenish
during life. The curious markings often found on the herring have been
considered by ignorant fishermen to signify mysterious words of cabalistic
import. On one November day, near three hundred years ago, two herrings
were caught on the coast of Norway, which bore marks resembling Gothic
printed characters. “They were presented to the then King of Norway,
Frederick II., who was so frightened by the characters he saw on the backs
of the innocent fish that he turned ghastly pale, for he thought that they
announced his approaching death and that of his queen.” A council of
_savants_ was convened, and the learned ones solemnly reported that the
words implied, “Very soon you will cease to fish herrings, as well as
other people.” Some more politic scientists gave another explanation, but
it was useless, for the king died next year, and his late subjects became
firmly convinced that the two herrings had been celestial messengers
charged to announce that monarch’s sudden end.
The herring abounds in the entire Northern Ocean from the coasts of France
and England to Greenland and Lapland. They are very gregarious, and travel
in immense shoals, their appearance in any specified locality being
uncertain and always sudden. On the coast of Norway the electric telegraph
is used to announce to the fishing towns the approach of the shoals, which
can always be perceived at a distance by the wave they raise. In the
fiords of Norway the herring fisheries are the principal means of
existence for the seaboard population. So in 1857 the paternal Norwegian
Government laid a submarine cable round the coast 100 miles in length,
with stations ashore at intervals conveniently placed for the purpose of
notifying the fishermen. In Holland the industries of catching and curing
the fish are highly profitable; the fishery is in consequence known as
“the great,” while whaling is known as the “small fishery.” To a simple
Dutch fisherman, George Benkel, who died in 1397, Holland owes the
introduction of the art of preserving and curing the herring. Two hundred
years after his death, the Emperor Charles V. solemnly ate a herring on
his tomb, as homage to the memory of the creator of a great national
industry.
[Illustration: THE HERRING (_Clupea harengus_).]
In our country there is also an important trade in the fish. Yarmouth
sends out 400 vessels of from forty to sixty tons, the larger carrying a
crew of twelve. In 1857 three fishing boats of this seaport brought home
3,762,000 fish. In Scotland the one town of Wick had a few years ago 920
boats employed in the fisheries.
The Dutch use lines 500 feet in length, with fifty or more nets to each.
The upper part of these nets is buoyed with empty barrels or cork, while
they are kept down by lead or stone weights; they can be lowered by
lengthening the cord to which the buoys are attached. The meshes of the
nets are so arranged that if the herring is too small to be caught in the
first meshes, he passes through and gets caught in the succeeding one. Dr.
Bertram went out in a Wick boat to the fishing grounds. He says:—“At last,
after a lengthened cruise, our commander, who had been silent for half an
hour, jumped up and called to action. ‘Up men, and at them!’ was the order
of the night. The preparations for shooting the nets at once began by
lowering sail. Surrounding us on all sides was to be seen a moving world
of boats; many with sails down, their nets floating in the water, and
their crews at rest. Others were still flitting uneasily about, their
skippers, like our own, anxious to shoot in the right place. By‐and‐by we
were ready; the ‘dog,’ a large inflated bladder to mark the far end of the
train, is heaved overboard, and the nets, breadth after breadth, follow as
fast as the men can pay them out, till the immense train is all in the
water, forming a perforated wall a mile long and many feet in depth, the
‘dog’ and the marking bladder, floating and dipping in long zig‐zag lines,
reminding one of the imaginary coils of the great sea‐serpent. After three
hours of quietude beneath a beautiful sky, the stars—
“The eternal orbs that beautify the night”—
began to pale their fires, and the grey dawn appearing indicated that it
was time to take stock. We found that the boat had floated quietly with
the tide till we were a long distance from the harbour. The skipper had a
presentiment that there were fish in his net, and the bobbing down of a
few of the bladders made it almost a certainty; and he resolved to examine
the drifts. ‘Hurrah!’ exclaimed Murdoch of Skye; ‘there’s a lot of fish,
skipper, and no mistake.’ Murdoch’s news was true; our nets were silvery
with herrings—so laden, in fact, that it took a long time to haul them in.
It was a beautiful sight to see the shimmering fish as they came up like a
sheet of silver from the water, each uttering a weak death‐chirp as it was
flung into the bottom of the boat. Formerly the fish were left in the
meshes of the net till the boat arrived in the harbour; but now, as the
net is hauled on board, they are at once shaken out. As our silvery
treasure showers into the boat, we roughly guess our capture at fifty
cranes—a capital night’s work.” Wick boats are not, however, always so
fortunate. The herring fleet has been overtaken more than once by fearful
storms, when valuable lives, boats, and nets, have been sacrificed.
Early in December, 1879, an apparent epidemic of suicide attacked the
herrings and sprats in Deal Roads, and they rushed ashore in such myriads
at Walmer that the fishermen got tired of carting them off, and they were
left on the beach for all who cared to help themselves. Nature seems now
and then to put bounds to over‐population, but if this be the case, no
herring famines need be feared, for economical Nature would never have
played into the hands of the fishermen who are always at war with her.
Such wholesale suicides occur among other forms of animal life. In Africa
regiments of ants have been seen deliberately marching into streams, where
they were immediately devoured by fish. Rats have migrated in myriads,
stopping nowhere, neither day nor night, and have been preyed upon by both
large birds and beasts of prey. In the Seychelles some years ago several
hundred turtles conspired to die together on the island in front of the
harbour, and carried out their decision. Were they the victims of
hydrophobia, delirium tremens, or some other disease? Even the gay and
sprightly butterfly has been known to migrate in immense clouds from the
land straight out to sea, without the remotest chance of ever reaching
another shore. What could be the reason for such a suicidal act?
It would be difficult to over‐estimate the value of deep sea fisheries; in
which, according to trustworthy statistics, England and Wales alone employ
nearly 15,000 boats, with nearly double that number of “hands,” added to
whom are over 14,000 others to whom they give occasional employment on the
coasts. The report of Commissioners Frank Buckland and Spencer Walpole,
who were instructed to investigate the modes of fishing in the two
countries named, and how far they were conducted on proper principles, has
therefore both importance and interest. It was feared that in certain
directions deep‐sea fishing, which undeniably leads to the capture of
myriads of young and useless fish, might have the same effect as wasteful
fishing and dredging did in the case of the salmon and oyster.
The Commissioners assure us that there is neither ground for alarm nor for
legislative interference. The beneficent sea is practically inexhaustible.
“Bearing in mind,” wrote a commentator on the Report, “how much has been
said regarding the wilful destruction of spawn, it is startling to hear
that nobody ‘has ever seen the eggs of soles, turbot, plaice, and other
like fish after their extrusion from the parent,’ while, with respect to
the finny tribe in general, the Commissioners add: ‘So far as we know,
there is, with one exception—herring spawn—no clearly‐established instance
of the spawn of any edible fish being raised in a trawl net or taken in
any other net.’ With these words one bugbear of the sea disappears.
Nature, whatever may be her shortcomings elsewhere, knows how to take care
of herself here. She carries on her life‐giving processes beyond our
reach, and is veiled in a mystery which even the keen observation of the
present time cannot penetrate, for the Commissioners remind us that,
generally speaking, ‘little is known either of the seasons in which sea
fish spawn or of the places in which the spawn is cast; still less of the
time which the spawn, after it is cast, takes to vivify.’ But if the spawn
evades the power of man, the young fish are not so fortunate. It is
unquestionable that an immense waste of fry of all kinds goes on round our
coasts. The trawler, the shrimper, the seine net, and the fixed engine,
combine against these little creatures, tons upon tons of which are
annually destroyed. At first sight it would seem that a grave matter here
presents itself. The Commissioners, however, proceed so to reason away its
importance that in the end it assumes very small dimensions indeed.
Starting from the indisputable fact that all animals have ‘a tendency to
increase at a greater rate than their means of subsistence,’ Messrs.
Buckland and Walpole go on to show that this especially applies to sea
fish; and they take as an example the fecund herring. Assuming that the
British waters contain sixty thousand millions of female herrings, each of
which deposits twenty thousand eggs, it follows that the total number of
eggs which, but for natural and artificial checks, would come to maturity
is twelve hundred millions of millions—an expression which is easy to put
on paper, but which the mind can no more comprehend than it can grasp the
idea of eternity. Enough that these countless hordes, if compressed by
five hundreds into foot cubes, would build a wall round the earth two
hundred feet broad and one hundred high. The inference from such
astounding figures is that man’s destructiveness can do little. He takes
one herring for every half‐million of eggs, while the original stock would
be kept up were only one egg to mature out of ten thousand. All fish, it
is true, are not as prolific as the herring, but the argument applies to
each kind in its degree, and may be summed up generally by the statement
that the proportion of spawn and fry which must perish is so great as to
reduce the operations of man to limits barely appreciable. On the
important related question whether the supply of fish is decreasing, the
Commissioners entertain no doubt whatever. They say, ‘so far from the
stock of fish decreasing, we believe that the supply of fish, taken on the
whole, is at least as great as it has ever been; there are some reasons
for even thinking that it is actually increasing.’ On the other hand, they
refer to a general impression that the take of flat‐fish, such as soles
and plaice, is becoming less; the local explanation referring almost
universally to the destruction of fry. Yet while the Commissioners do not,
except in the case of soles, contest the alleged decrease, they refuse to
recognise the assigned cause, nor, generally speaking, do they see any
reason for legislative action of a restrictive nature.” The prospects of
our ocean fishing, both as an industry and as a food supply, are,
therefore, encouraging. The harvest of the sea is constant, and though
there must be local fluctuations, the return for the labour of those “who
reap where they have not sowed” is sure.
[Illustration: HERRING FISHING.]
Of the shad, though not as commonly known as the herring, there are twenty
known species. In the season this fish regularly approaches the mouths of
great rivers for the purpose of spawning. It is found in the spring in the
Rhine, Seine, Garonne, Volga, Elbe, and in many of our own rivers. In some
Irish rivers the masses of shad taken have been so great that hardly any
amount of exertion has been sufficient to land the net. It sometimes
attains a very considerable size, weighing from four to six pounds. The
shad taken at sea is considered coarser eating than that caught in rivers.
The sprat has been by some taken for the young of the herring, and the
controversy on the subject has at times waxed warm. Some anatomists
declare that their peculiarities show no difference but size. It has a
serrated belly, which Bertram looks upon as the tuck in the child’s frock,
a provision for growth. “The slaughter of sprats,” says he, “is as decided
a case of killing the goose with the golden eggs as the grilse slaughter
carried on in our salmon rivers.” But Figuier reminds that writer that the
young herrings are caught without the serrated belly, and that the curer’s
purchase is regulated by the sprat’s rough, and the herring’s smooth,
belly. Sprats are often so abundant as to be unsaleable, and are then
actually used for manure.
[Illustration: THE PILCHARD (_Clupea pilchardus_).]
The pilchard visits our coasts at all times, the leading fisheries being
in Cornwall. Wilkie Collins has given us a lively and interesting picture
of the “look‐out” for their approach and capture.(46) He says: “A stranger
in Cornwall, taking his first walk along the cliffs in August, could not
advance far without witnessing what would strike him as a very singular
and even alarming phenomenon. He would see a man standing on the extreme
edge of a precipice just over the sea, gesticulating in a very remarkable
manner, with a bush in his hand, waving it to the right and to the left,
brandishing it over his head, sweeping it past his feet; in short, acting
the part of a maniac of the most dangerous description. It would add
considerably to the stranger’s surprise if he were told that the insane
individual before him was paid for flourishing the bush at the rate of a
guinea a week.(47) And if he advanced a little, so as to obtain a nearer
view of the madman, and observed a well‐manned boat below turning
carefully to the right and left as the bush turned, his mystification
would probably be complete, and his ideas as to the sanity of the
inhabitants would be expressed with grievous doubt.
“But a few words of explanation would make him alter his opinion. He would
learn that the man was an important agent in the pilchard fishery of
Cornwall, that he had just discovered a shoal swimming towards the land,
and that the men in the boats were guided by his gesticulations alone in
their arrangements for securing the fish on which so many depend for a
livelihood.” These watchers are known locally as “huers.” They can easily
detect the approach of the shoals, as they darken the water, producing the
effect of a cloud. As they approach the fish may themselves be seen
leaping and playing on the surface by hundreds; sometimes they are so
abundant that the fish behind force those in front ashore, and they are
taken by hand or in baskets.
The boats, each of about fifteen tons burden, carry a large, long seine
net, kept up by corks and down by lead. The grand object in the fishery,
guided by the “huer” on the cliffs ashore, is to drive the shoals into
shallow waters and bays.
“The grand object is now to enclose the entire shoal. The leads sink one
side of the net perpendicularly to the bottom, the corks buoy the other to
the surface of the water. When it has been taken all round the shoal, the
two extremities are made fast, and the fish are imprisoned within an
oblong barrier of netting. The art is now to let as few of the pilchards
escape as possible while the process is being completed. Whenever the
‘huer’ observes that they are startled, and separating at any particular
point, he waves his bush, and thither the boat is steered, and there the
net is shot at once; the fish are thus headed and thwarted in every
direction with extraordinary address and skill. This labour completed, the
silence of intense expectation that has hitherto prevailed is broken,
there is a shout of joy on all sides—the shoal is secured.” The seine is
now regarded as a great reservoir of fish, and may remain in the water for
a week or more. The pilchards are collected from it in a smaller net known
as the “tuck.” When this net has travelled round the whole circuit of the
seine, everything is prepared for the great event—hauling the fish to the
surface.
“Now all is excitement on sea and shore; every little boat in the place
puts off crammed with idle spectators; boys shout, dogs bark, and the
shrill voices of the former are joined by the deep voices of the
‘seiners.’ There they stand, six or eight stalwart, sunburnt fellows,
ranged in a row in the seine‐boat, hauling with all their might at the
‘tuck’‐net, and roaring out the nautical ‘Yo, heave ho!’ in chorus. Higher
and higher rises the net; louder and louder shout the boys and the idlers;
the ‘huer,’ so calm and collected hitherto, loses his self‐possession, and
waves his cap triumphantly. ‘Hooray! hooray! Yoy—hoy, hoy! Pull away,
boys! Up she comes! Here they are!’ The water boils and eddies; the
‘tuck’‐net rises to the surface; one teeming, convulsed mass of shining,
glancing, silvery scales, one compact mass of thousands of fish, each one
of which is madly striving to escape, appears in an instant. Boats as
large as barges now pull up in hot haste all round the nets, baskets are
produced by dozens, the fish are dipped up in them, and shot out, like
coals out of a sack, into the boats. Presently the men are ankle‐deep in
pilchards; they jump upon the benches, and work on till the boats can hold
no more. They are almost gunwale under before they leave for the shore.”
At the little fishing cove of Trereen, Mr. Wilkie Collins tells us, 600
hogsheads, each of 2,400 fish and upwards, were taken in little more than
a week.
The sardine also comes under the _Clupedæ_ family. It derives its
commercial name from Sardinia, but is found all over the Mediterranean,
the coast of Brittany, &c. On the latter coast the fish are caught in
floating nets, and arranged in osier baskets, layer after layer, each boat
returning to port when it has secured 25,000.
Space will not permit of more than a passing notice to the flat‐fish, or
_Pleuronectidæ_. These fish swim by means of a caudal fin, and they can
ascend or descend in the water readily, but they cannot turn to right or
left with the same facility as other fish. Most flat‐fish, soles, turbot,
flounders, and plaice, are taken by trawl nets. Some of the larger are
speared.
The holibut (or halibut) is a fish which attains a great size, sometimes
as much as seven feet in length, and weighing 300 pounds. One brought to
Edinburgh measured seven‐and‐a‐half feet in length by three feet in
breadth; it weighed 320 pounds. In Norway and Greenland a long cord, from
which branch thirty or so smaller cords, each furnished with a barbed
hook, is employed for their capture. The main cord is attached to floating
planks, which indicate the place where it is let down.
The _Gadidæ_ family includes some most important fish, commercially
considered, such as the whiting, haddock, and cod, the general form and
peculiarities of which are familiar to all.
The cod fish is a most voracious feeder, and is provided with a vast
stomach; it eats molluscs, crabs, and small fish, and has been known even
to swallow pieces of wood. It is essentially a sea fish, and is never seen
in rivers. From the days of John Cabot, the English, French, Dutch, and
Americans have prosecuted the great fisheries on the banks of
Newfoundland; 2,000 English vessels, manned by 32,000 seamen, are employed
in the pursuit. The modern cod‐smack is clipper‐built, has large tank
wells for carrying the fish alive, and costs about £1,500. The fish is
taken in nets, or by line. Bertram tells us that each man has a line of
fifty fathoms in length, and attached to this are a hundred hooks, baited
with mussels, pieces of herring, or whiting. “On arriving at the fishing
ground, the fishermen heave overboard a cork buoy, with a flagstaff about
six feet in height attached to it. The buoy is kept stationary by a line,
called the ‘pow end,’ reaching to the bottom of the water, where it is
held by a stone or grapnel fastened to the lower end. To the ‘pow end’ is
also fastened the fishing‐line, which is then paid out as fast as the boat
sails, which may be from four to five knots an hour. Should the wind be
unfavourable for the direction in which the crew wish to set the line,
they use the oars. When the line, or ‘taes,’ is all out, the end is
dropped, and the boat returns to the buoy. The ‘pow’ line is hauled up
with the anchor and fishing‐line attached to it. The fishermen then haul
in the line, with the fish attached to it. Eight hundred fish might be,
and often have been, taken by eight men in a few hours by this operation;
but many fishermen say now that they consider themselves fortunate when
they get a fish on every fifth hook on an eight‐lined ‘taes’ line.” On our
own coasts the cod is principally taken by deep‐sea lines, with many
shorter lines depending from them armed with large hooks. One man has in
ten hours taken 400, and eight men have taken eighty score in one day off
the Doggerbank. The Norfolk and Lincoln coasts afford a large supply; the
fish taken is stowed in well‐boats, and brought to Gravesend, whence they
are transhipped into market boats and sent to Billingsgate. The store‐
boats with their wells, through which the water circulates, cannot come
higher, as the fresh water of the Thames, and possibly some of that which
is _not_ too fresh, would kill the fish.
[Illustration: THE COD (_Morrhua vulgaris_).]
The haddock is also taken with lines. In the village of Findhorn,
Morayshire, large numbers of fine haddocks are dried and smoked with the
fumes of hard wood and sawdust. Hence the term, “Finnan haddies,” which,
when obtained, are the finest for gastronomic purposes, being of superior
flavour.
The mackerel (_Scomber scombrus_) is a most valuable fish for man. The
tunny, bonita, and mackerel have yielded immense supplies of excellent
food, the first‐named being esteemed in parts of France far above any
other fish. It is called the salmon of Provence. They attain a far larger
growth than the mackerel, specimens having been found of seven, eight, and
even nine feet in length, and weighing up to 400 pounds. They are
specially abundant in the Mediterranean, where they are usually caught in
nets. In Provence they are driven, much as are the pilchards in Cornwall,
into an enclosed space called the _madrague_, where at last the fish finds
itself ensnared in shallow water. Then “the carnage commences. The unhappy
creatures,” says Figuier, “are struck with long poles, boat‐hooks, and
other weapons. The tunny‐fishing presents a very sad spectacle at this its
last stage; fine large fish perish under the blows of a multitude of
fishermen, who pursue their bloody task with most dramatic effect. The
sight of the poor creatures, some of them wounded and half dead, trying in
vain to struggle with their ferocious assailants, is very painful to see.
The sea red with blood, long preserves traces of this frightful
slaughter.”
The bonita is principally a tropical fish, not unlike the mackerel, but
more than double its size. It is the great enemy of the flying‐fish, and
possesses electrical or stinging powers, for any one attempting to hold
the living fish is violently shaken as in palsy, and one’s very tongue is
tied, and unable to make more than a spasmodic sputter.
[Illustration: THE MACKEREL (_Scomber scombrus_).]
The mackerel is common to all European seas. It is the _macquereau_ of the
French, the _macarello_ of the modern Romans, the _makril_ of the Swedes,
the _bretal_ of some parts of Brittany, the _scombro_ of the Venetians,
the _lacesto_ of the Neapolitans, and the _cavallo_ of the Spaniards. It
is one of the most universally‐esteemed fish.
The mackerel is very voracious, and has courage enough to attack fish much
larger than itself. It will even attack man, and is said to love him,
gastronomically speaking. A Norwegian bishop who lived in the sixteenth
century records the case of a sailor attacked by a shoal of mackerel,
while he was bathing. His companions came to the rescue; but though they
succeeded in driving off the fish, their assistance came too late; he died
a few hours afterwards.
This fish is generally taken by drift‐nets, usually 20 feet deep, and 120
long, well buoyed with cork, but without weights to sink them. The meshes
are made of fine tarred twine. They are in their best condition in June
and July. The ancients used to make a sauce piquant from their fat, which
was called _garum_, and sold for the equivalent of sixteen shillings the
pint. It was acrid and nauseous, but had the property of stimulating jaded
appetites. Seneca charged it with destroying the coats of the stomach, and
injuring the health of the high livers of his day. A traveller of the
sixteenth century, Pierre Belon, found it highly esteemed in
Constantinople.
[Illustration: FISHING FOR TUNNY OFF THE COAST OF PROVENCE.]
The formidable sword‐fish is also tolerable eating, especially when young,
and there are fisheries for its capture in the Mediterranean. The
fishermen of Messina and Reggio fish by night, using large boats carrying
torches, and a mast, at the top of which one of their number is stationed
to announce the approach of their prey, which is harpooned by a man
standing in the bows. This fish attains a length of five or six feet, its
sword forming three‐tenths of its length. It is one of the whale’s natural
enemies, and it objects even to ships passing through its element. There
are numerous cases cited of ship’s bottoms having been pierced by it. In
1725, some carpenters having occasion to examine a ship just returned from
the tropics, found the sword of one of these animals buried in its lower
timbers. They averred that to drive a pointed iron bolt of the same size
to the same depth would require eight or nine blows with a thirty‐pound
hammer. It was further evident from the position of the weapon that the
fish had followed the ship while under full sail; it had penetrated the
metal sheathing and three‐and‐a‐half inches of the timber.
[Illustration: FISHING FOR SWORD‐FISH.]
And now, before leaving the minor and intermediate types of ocean life for
the monsters of the deep, a few general observations may be permitted.
Pliny described 94 species of fish; Linnæus described 478; the scientists
of to‐day know upwards of 13,000, one‐tenth of which are fresh‐water fish.
The reader will then understand why only a few of the more important,
useful, or curious have been described in these pages.
A hard man of science once described fish‐life as “silent, monotonous, and
joyless.” Modern science has disproved each and all of these statements.
As regards the first, there are species actually known which “indulge in
jews’‐harps, trumpets, and drums.... Musical fish are a fact of positive
knowledge, for not only can they be heard in shoals thrumming their
jews’‐harps in unison, but other kinds have been taken in the very act of
trumpeting and drumming.” Bertram, as we have seen, speaks of the “death‐
chirp” of the captured herring. The application of the telephone has
proved that a fish, placed alone in some water, actually talked to itself!
Mr. S. E. Peal, in a letter to a scientific journal, tells us of a large
fish, _Barbes macrocephalus_, which converses with a peculiar “cluck,” or
persuasive sound, which may be heard as far as forty feet from the water.
He also mentions a bivalve of Eastern Assam which actually “sings loudly
in concert.”
How fish‐life could be called monotonous and joyless will puzzle any one
who has watched them in a large aquarium, where their every movement tells
of pleasure, or at least excitement. Imagine, then, their life in the
ocean itself. All around them is life—life in constant activity. The
ancients said, and Pliny assented to the dictum, that in the water might
be found anything or everything that was found out of it, and as much more
besides. Then there is the excitement of the chase, in which they may be
either the pursued or the pursuers. “Not only,” said a writer in a leading
daily journal, “can they indulge themselves in running away from sharks,
as we should do from tigers if they swarmed in the streets, in
contemplating the while the elephant of the seas sauntering along through
his domain, or finding diversion and instruction in the winged process of
the flying‐fish or the tree‐climbing of perch, the buffooneries of sun‐
fish and pipe‐fish, the cunning artifices of the ‘angler‐fish,’ the
electric propensities of some, the luminosity of others, the venomous
nature of these or the grotesque appearance of those—not only is all the
variety of experience to be found on the earth to be found also in the
water, but even in a wider range and a greater diversity. The sea floor is
strewn with marvels, and the rocks are instinct with wonders.” Fish‐life
is, then, full of excitement and interest.
An accomplished ichthyologist, Mr. F. Francis, has stirred up the vexed
question, “Do fish sleep?” Only a very few fish, the dog‐fish being one of
the few exceptions, can close their eyes at all. Still, on the other hand,
some human beings, and notably infants, can sleep with one or both eyes
open, while the hare is credited with being able to take his nap in the
latter condition. Fish would seem to require sleep from their constant
activity; but in actual fact, no scientific watcher has yet caught one
asleep.