What is this writhing, wriggling thing, that looks like a narrow tape
of burnished silver? It is a Sand-launce,[57] and very slyly is it
endeavouring to make its way down to the rippling edge of the wave, to
liberty and life. But not so fast, pretty Launce! we want to have a
look at you, and to introduce you to a very jolly set in our aquarium
at home. Now don’t flounce and dart round the jar so angrily: you can’t
get out, and may as well be philosophic.
Do you see the remarkable projection of the lower jaws? With that sort
of spade the little silvery fish manages to scoop out a bed for itself
very quickly in the wet sand, and so lie hid. It is numerous enough in
these bays, and it is in request among fishermen, who use it largely as
bait, and who, to obtain it, cast a seine, and enclose vast multitudes,
which are thus dragged up on the beach high and dry.
A short time ago I saw a paragraph in the _Times_, from some Jersey
correspondent, who complained of the recent scarcity of fish, and
accounted for it by the following curious catenation of links. A number
of sharks had recently appeared in the offing, which frightened away
the shoals of porpesses, which ordinarily came to feed on the fishes,
which fed on the Sand-launce. Now when the porpesses were there the
fishes were driven with the Launce into the shallows, and were readily
taken; but, on being relieved of these persecutors by the intruding
sharks, were free to retire to the deeper water, where the fishers
could less easily entrap them. The writer stated, however, that at
length the sharks had departed, the porpesses had returned, the fishes
were consequently driven in shore, and were again devouring the Launce.
The whole account has something of the “House that Jack built” twang,
and I do not quite pin my faith on the philosophy of the explanation.