18700 LOLI 


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OLN ALISHAA 


Presented to the 


UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO 
LIBRARY 


by the 


ONTARIO LEGISLATIVE 
LIBRARY 


1980 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2008 with funding from 
Microsoft Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/creaturesofseabeOObulluoft 


E SEA 


‘URES 


THE CACHALOT’S FIGHT FOR POWER. 


Frontispiece.) 


CREATURES 


OF THE SEA 


BEING THE LIFE STORIES OF 


SOME SEA BIRDS, BEASTS, 


AND FISHES 


By 
FRANK T. BULLEN, FrGs. 


. CHRIST AT SEA,’ ‘A SAILOR APOSTLE,’ ETC. 


WITH FORTY ILLUSTRATIONS 
BY THEO. CARRERAS 


THIRD IMPRESSION 


McCLELLAND & GOODCHILD 
TORONTO 


1909 


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PREFACE 


HETHER any book needs a Preface as well 
W as an Introduction is a question that may 
fairly be debated. But I have ever had a kindness 
for Prefaces, have, from my earliest acquaintance 
with books, always read them carefully; and so, 
although the first part of this book that was written 
was the Introduction, when all else was finished I 
felt that I could not let it go forth to the world 
without a Preface as well. 

There were several reasons why I should write a 
Preface, not the least of which was that I could 
now see how far my execution of a pleasant task 
had corresponded with my desires. Alas! Upon re- 
reading that Introduction I feel that I have indeed 
fallen short of my ideal—that I have done very much 
less than bare justice to my marine friends, far less 
than I had hoped. But still, I do feel that in many 
instances I have been enabled to bring before my 


' readers some first-hand glimpses into that intimate 


life of the sea which is so little known, and accounts 


of which may be sought for in vain in natural 
z 


2 Preface 


histories. Here I have great hopes that some 
measure of success has attended my sincere efforts 
to depict life in and upon the ocean as it has been 
personally known to me. 

Another reason for writing this short Preface is 
that it enables me to call attention to the artistic 
and sympathetic work of Mr. Theo. Carreras, my 
artist coadjutor. The liberality of the Religious 
Tract Society has enabled us to give no less than 
forty of these really beautiful illustrations, and I 
cannot feel too grateful to them for having thus 
assisted me. For the making of those drawings has 
been a labour of love, Mr. Carreras having brought 
all his artistic knowledge to back up and reproduce | 
my recollections of the attitudes of the various 
creatures, and the result is to me most gratifying. 
I feel confident that it will not be less so to my 
readers. . 

And so I leave my book in your hands, friendly 
reader, with pleasant remembrances of your kind- 
ness to me to buttress my hopes that this latest 
effort will meet with the same appreciation. 


FRANK T. BULLEN. 


CONTENTS 


I. INTRODUCTION . . ‘ ° * ‘ 9 
II. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SPERM WHALE 13 
III. THE MYSTICETUS, OR RIGHT WHALE a” HRS 
Iv. THE HUMPBACK WHALE . ° ; oat 
V. TH# RORQUALS . ° ‘ ° ° eg 
VI. SIRENIA A . ° ° : F Reed 

VII. THE WALRUS, MORSE, OR SEA-HORSE ~~. 77 
VIII. THE SEA ELEPHANT . ° : . ey 
5X: SRALS....¢ _ P ° ° ‘ ° x: 98 
X. THE SHARK. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ° « OF 
XI. THE TURTLE : . ‘ > ° a aad 
XII. THE CUTTLE-FISH OR SQUID. : Py © 
XIII. DEEP-SEA CHIMARAS . ‘ . R -» 146 
XIV. SEA-SERPENTS . > . e ° - 165 
XV. THE ALBACORE , ° ° . . « £82 


XVI. THE BONITO gg Ag es Be 


4 Contents 


CHAP, PAGE 
XVII. THE FLYING-FISH . ; , . 
XVIII. THE DOLPHIN . : : ; . 28 
XIX. THE MACKEREL : : : : - 256° 9 
xx. COD . 4 ‘ 3 ; ; , » 276 
XXI. THE HERRING . ; ‘ . : . 2Q91 ; 
XXII. THE BARRACOUTA . : : ; - 310 ) 


XXIII. THE ALBATROSS ° ° 5 ° - 331 


XXIV. CAPE PIGEONS AND WHALE BIRDS =. 350 


XXV. THE PETRELS . ; ; i ‘ - 368 
XXVI. BOOBIES AND PENGUINS ; : - 386 
XXVII. THE FRIGATE BIRD. - ; ; - 403 


XXVIII. SEAWEED . . . ° : : - 417 


Sea ee sy 
y ar Ree 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


Tue CAcHALOT’s FIGHT FOR POWER . ° : 
A SPERM WHALE BABy . 2, : P ‘ : 
SPERM WHALES AT DINNER . 7 : i 
Tue CACHALOT’S DEATH STRUGGLE 

A RicHT WHALE AND ITs Fors . ; 

A MoTHER WHALE PURSUED BY SHARKS 


HARPOONING BLACKFISH . . . . . 


TuE HAUNTS OF THE WALRUS , ‘ : ; 


SEa-ELEPHANTS . . ° ° ; ; P 
A Fur SEAL ROOKERY . F - . 

Some TypicaAL SHARKS . , . ‘ : : 
HARPOONING A SLEEPING TURTLE . * : ; 


AWAITING THE TURTLE . g 3 - : A 


A Deep Sea Beast oF Prey (GIANT CUTTLE-FISH) 
5 


. Frontispiece 
To face page 
obit 
ot gO 
- 29 
iecgs 
» 52 
ee 
80 

> 84 
- 97 
117 

124 
. 129 


6 List of Illustrations 


Giant Sguip AND Common LOLIGO “ e . ° ° 
Deep SEA NIGHTMARES . 2 ‘ . ‘i . . 


THE ‘DAEDALUS’ SEA-SERPENT, AND ITS MOST PROBABLE 


EXPLANATION , ‘ : ‘ ‘ . < e : 
Tue ALBACORE’S NARROW ESCAPE. .« 4 « @ - 
BREEDING PLACE OF THE ALBACORE  . ° ° : ° 
A ScHoot or Bonito , ° ° ° ° ° ‘ ° 
A ScHOOL OF FLYING-FISH ATTACKED BY ALBACORE . « 
A SHARK SEIZING A DOLPHIN ° . ° a cee ° 
NETTING MACKEREL. ° ‘ 9 - . * ° ° 


HorsE MACKEREL AND GARFISH . . P oe RM oie ial 
LINE FISHING FOR CoD ON THE ‘BANKS’ . . - ‘ 
POLLOCK FEEDING ON THEIR YOUNG. ‘ ° P ‘ 
In THE HERRING CURING HOUSE , e . « ° ° 


How THE WHITING 1S CAUGHT ., e - ° ‘ ‘ 


BARRACOUTA . ‘ . . é . ‘ ° ‘ eet 


THE ALBATROSS . ° . P A ES 
Lert To His Own RESOURCES , ‘ : j ‘ * 


WHALEBIRDS , F ‘ ° Fy " . " Fi . 


STRANGE COMPANIONS , “ ; * é pe P s 


395 


List of Illustrations 


_ CAPE PIGEONS . _ A : : F ‘ 


THE FULMAR PETREL (STINKER) - + + °* 


StrorMY PETREL TEACHING ITS YOUNG TO FLY 


SroRMY PETRELS . ; ? ; ; 
A CoLony OF BooBiES . ‘ ; - 
PENGUINS ; ‘ Pe P F - . 


THE FRIGATE BirD AT WORK , . < 


7 


To face page 


364 
368 
373 
380 
388 
397 


410 


A SPERM WHALE BABY, 


[To face p. 9- 


CREATURES OF THE SEA 


CHAPTER I 
INTRODUCTION 


HERE has of recent years grown up a very 
ai pleasant practice with certain writers, notably 
the lamented Richard Jefferies, the inimitable 
Kipling, and Ernest Thompson-Seton, not to go 
further in cataloguing names, of supplementing the 
standard works on Natural History with intimate 
personal details of the every-day lives of wild 
animals from the highest to the lowest, not ex- 
cluding insects. I said pleasant practice, but would 
add profitable to the reader of whatever age, for 
I think no one except some dry-as-dust, blear-eyed 
professor, groping amid the dry bones of his museum 
all his life, would fail to agree that a story like 
Kipling’s White Seal, for instance, must convey to 
the average reader, whether young or old, more 
retainable knowledge of the creatures it treats of 
than a whole weighty volume of dry facts, mostly 
in dead languages, even supposing it was read. Of 


course, the desideratum is that the information pre- 


sented in this narrative form shall be correct, that 


_where the imagination is called in to supply the 


IO Introduction 


absence of exact data it shall not be allowed to commit 
indefensible extravagances, and that the stories as a 
whole shall, if not stamped with the same hall-mark 
of genius as the White Seal, at least endeavour to be 
as readable in their degree. 

With this object before my eyes, I now essay a 
series of lives of the Deep-Sea People based very 
largely upon personal observation, buttressed ae 
scientific facts and decorated by imagination. — 
well know how ambitious the task is, but I feel that 
I have some small qualifications for the work, and I 
know too how much room there is for a book of the 
kind. A minor difficulty confronts me at the outset. 
In justice the place of honour at the commencement 
should—I felt, must—be given to the undoubted 
Monarch of the Deep, the stupendous Whale. But 
I have written so much, so exhaustively about him 
(as a ship is ‘she’ to sailors, so a whale is ‘he’ to 
whalers), that it must be impossible to avoid some 
repetition (for which I trust I shall be forgiven) of 
what I have published before. And it would naturally 
appear as if I had deliberately chosen to place the © 
Whales first because of my personal predilection for — 
their gigantic company, and more extended acquaint- 
ance with them as regards their every-day life. But 
that is not so. I would gladly put a much smaller 
denizen of the deep sea forward first if I might with 
propriety do so. However, I feel that to be out of 
the question, so the Whale comes first. ) 

Again, I beg to observe that this series of life- 
histories will possess no orderly sequence of species 
or genera, I intend to keep mammals, fish, and birds, 
each in a section of their own, but apart from that, 
I wish to keep the work as unlike an orthodox natural 
history as it is possible, to make. it. Of necessity, 


Introduction II 


these will be selected lives, since there are so many 
species of Deep-Sea Folk of which man, by reason of 
his limitations, can know practically nothing. But 


_ I do hope to include all the fauna of the sea likely to 


make interesting and popular studies—no, not studies. 
I want to dissociate the idea of study from the book 
altogether. If it smells of the lamp I shall be greatly 
disappointed, and so will my readers. It should read 
like a series of intimate biographies of tried and trusted 
friends, whose lives, though passed on a different plane 
from ours, are no less full of interest. 

A high and solid wall of division separates us from 
the full fellowship with the lower animals which many 
of us feel would add a new zest to life. Now and then 
it gets low and thin, as in the case of the dog, the horse, 
the elephant, the cat; but even with these domestic 


friends there always meets us the baffling barrier, 


preventing the contact of our minds with what fills 
the same function in the animal. And if this is so in 
regard to those closely associated creatures, how much 
more is it in regard to the wild ones, and how immeasur- 
ably greater in the case of those interesting beings of 
whom we only catch fleeting glimpses as it were. Here 
imagination aided by experience is the only interpreter. 
It may mistranslate, it may fail to understand many 
things at all, but on the other hand it may—it has, 
it often does—hit upon the exact truth as to the inner 
lives of its subjects, at any rate, in far greater measure 
than any statistical compilation can ever do. 

To conclude this brief introduction, let me say that 
in some cases I feel it will be preferable to make the 


. sketch an apparent autobiography as it were—to let 


the creature written about tell his own story in our 
language, but from his point of view. This, I feel, 
would hardly be appropriate to all the life-histories 


I2 Introduction 


of the sea-folk, but in some cases it will be peculiarly 
so. Notably among the mammalia and other amphibia. 
And now I feel that it would be injudicious on my part, _ 
as well as somewhat priggish, to spend more time in — 
saying what I intend todo. Far better go ahead and ~ 
do it. : 


CHAPTER II 


THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SPERM 
WHALE 


Y earliest recollections are rather hazy, but 
M principally centre themselves around pleasant 
sensations. I was born, as nearly as I can 
remember, at high noon in the Indian Ocean near 
the Equator. You must excuse me from being more 
exact, for while we whales know the oceans down 
to a depth of five hundred fathoms from North to 
South within the frigid zones, and all the watery 
world around, we do not pretend to the scrupulous 
accuracy with regard to exact position that humans 
do. Why should we? We always know where we 
are, we never miss one another, and although we 
keep no log-books we never forget anything that 
we ought to remember. 

So to come back to my birthplace, it was, as I have 
said, in the Indian Ocean near the Line, and my first 
feeling was, ‘ How pleasant everything is!’ The sea 
was like warm milk, the softest, most delicious cradle 
that ever babe was rocked in. Overhead,the glorious 
sun like a globe of molten fire that was bursting its 


- bounds on every part of its rim, poured down a flood of 


life-giving heat. Not a cloud in the stainless blue, 
not a fleck of foam on the peaceful waters, only great 


33 


14 Autobiography of a Sperm Whale 


glowing breadths of colour ever changing in obedience — 
to some mysterious law. I lay, happiest of the happy, — 
by my mother’s side, my blunt nose protruding from — 
the water about a foot, the teat in the angle of my jaw, 
in which the immature teeth were just sprouting, an 
the rich milk streaming sweetly down my throat quite 
unmixed with any sea-water. You see, we have a 
most exquisite contrivance in our gullets, which without 
any effort on our parts, takes in the food and shuts out 
the sea, even at enormous depths. But just how it 
does it I cannot explain, nor do I think that anybody 
can. I looked a queer little creature, with my head, 
the biggest part of me, like a tadpole’s, and my long 
thin lower jaw sticking out in front of me almost as if 
a big splinter had run into my face and remained there. 
But my mother did not think so; she was very proud 
of me, and we both lay upon our beautiful baer. 
supremely happy. | 
All around us lay the rest of the school, thirty or 
forty cows, eight or ten young bulls, and father. Ah, 
never shall I forget when I saw him first. He was 
going round the family to see that all was well, as he 
did some six times a day, and he passed quite close to — 
where I nestled at my mother’s side. He was one of — 
the mightiest of our mighty race, with a head like a 
promontory and a length of over seventy feet. And 
as he surged slowly up behind me on the surface of the 
quiet sea, I saw the whole of him clearly and trembled. 
(You must understand that we can only see behind us 
owing to the position of our eyes, which are placed a 
little below where the shoulders are in a man and almost 
in the middle of the body’s breadth.) He just glanced — 
at me as he glided by, a glance as it seemed to me of © 
perfect satisfaction. My mother quivered with delight, 
as, sheering in towards her, he touched his forehead to 


Pleasant Days at Home 15 


hers, graciously, as became a monarch towards his 
adoring consort, with whom he was well pleased. 

For many days we remained in this mid-ocean 
solitude, chosen by our wise ruler as being where none 
of the hateful monsters of man’s making ever came, 
a place not too far from rich plateaux not too deep, 
whose intricacies swarmed with our proper food, where 
the sea-streams ran warmly and the sun rose and set 
continually with never a cloud, a place where we alone 
of all the sea-folk had no foes to fear. This proud 
pre-eminence above all our fellows had not long been 
ours. In our hasteless chronology it seemed but a 
short time past since in every part of the sea we were 
liable to pursuit, harassing wounds, and death at the 
hands of men. Alone among the tribes of earth and air 
and sea we feared them, for we knew by bitter experi- 
ence that our utmost rage, strength, and courage 
availed nothing against these feeble ones, who neverthe- 
less were so wise that they were bound to overcome 
us. True, we did them terrible damage on occasions, 
and some of our warriors, notably the head of my family, 
had invariably come out of conflicts with the earth- 
people without deadly injury, although bearing all 
over their vast body-surfaces wide white scars where 
the cruel wounds dealt them by men had healed. And 
each of them had a long roll of victories to his credit. 
Yet this did not make them tyrannous or over-bearing, 
it but added to their wisdom and ability to command 
the younger generations. 

Now I am not so arrogant as to suggest that all 
this knowledge was mine as soon as I was born, I do 
. but tell you these things as a sort of introduction to 
my family, of which I am mightily proud, yet not more 
so I think than they deserve. No, like all young 
creatures, for the early days of my life I was content 


16 Autobiography of a Sperm Whale 


to be alive and full of joy. Everything was new, — 
everything was entirely delightful. I was very soon — 
weaned, for among our people, the Sperm Whales, 
there does not exist that intensity of maternal affection 
which characterises the other kinds of whale, with only 
one exception. We really do not need it, for food is 
easy to obtain, and of a nature entirely fitted for a mere 
baby to eat. So that when I was less than a month old 
I had taken my place in the school as one of its ordinary 
members, and my early relations with my mother were 
entirely forgotten—in fact I knew no difference between 
her and any other member of the school or family. But 
during all that period I had been learning by closest 
imitation, as well as by yielding to my strange inward 
promptings impelling me to do that which I had never 
done before, in emulation of the feats I saw being 
performed by those around me, and when I became 
independent I was, although quite an insignificant 
member of the school, fully capable of doing all that 
they did in respect of swimming, diving and obtaining 
food. 

I am now getting old, the waves and storms of half 
a century have rolled and thundered over my head, 
but vividly as on that first day do I remember when by 
my mother’s side closely following her every movement 
I sank into the cool, translucent, and darkling depths 
for the first time. I shrank closely in to my mother’s 
bosom as we left the warm sunshine in which we had 
been basking. I noticed with youthful wonder and 
admiration the stately graceful way in which my mother 
arched her back, lowered her head and elevated the 
broad fans of her tail into the air as she descended, and 
then all else was swallowed up in amazement. Slowly 
we sank through the increasing coolness of the sea, 
dimmer and dimmer grew the light from above, until, 


ee ee 


I Earn Experience 17 


after what seemed a day, but could only have been a 
few minutes, we stopped our descent and began to 
move horizontally. 

At first I was dreadfully distressed. I felt as if I 
was being squeezed flat, I wanted to breathe, but I 
found that my nostril was as securely sealed as if it 
was never to be opened again, certainly I could not 
open it. My lower jaw hung down, leaving my mouth 
wide open, and presently a delicious quivering morsel 
went gliding down my throat, giving me a most ex- 
quisite feeling of satisfaction. The gloom which had so 
troubled me at first gave way to a tender, greenish light 
shed abroad by myriads of shining things that glowed 
and faded as they floated about apparently without any 
will of their own. The cold, too, which at first had felt 
unbearable, chilling my blood and making it feel as if 
it was thickening so much that it could not flow, 
became less unpleasant. And presently, tiny as I was, 
I realised that this was my proper realm, that here 
our people were supreme, and that of all the myriads 
of diverse creatures in the sea we were the undoubted 
heads and leaders. All other sea-citizens but ourselves 
preyed upon and were preyed upon by other denizens of 
the deep, we alone took toll where we would, ourselves 
secure from all assault by any of the sea-folk. It wasa 
high and elevating thought to feel oneself a lineal 
descendant of such a mighty and ancient line of ocean 
royalty. 

All around me glided in utter silence amid the 
varying gleams, like vast shadows, the members of 
the school. Occasionally in hasteless, dignified fashion 
one would rise perpendicularly with some palely 


- glowing mass between his jaws, and reversing his 


position, let the great saw of his lower mandible 
divide whatever it was he held into sizeable fragments 
a 


18 Autobiography of a Sperm Whale 


for swallowing. These pieces were upon the same — 
colossal scale as himself, and slipped down his gullet — 
with an easy celerity that was pleasant to see. No © 
one was selfish. The prey of one was the prey of all, 
and a certain gigantic courtesy prevented any in- 
dividual from appropriating more than his actual — 
share. But suddenly into the midst of these mys- 
terious delights there thrust itself an imperative — 
command to seek air. We can and do remain in the © 
depths for as much as one hour, according to our size, 
but the length of time we stay down is always care- 
fully calculated according to the need of the youngest — 
member of the party. Ah! the swift rush upward, 
impelled seemingly by the whole weight of the ocean — 
beneath. Ah! the blissful emergence into brightness — 
most dazzling, and the simultaneous opening of all 
spiracles. Oh! the sweet rush of heaven’s air through — 
the quivering nostril into the labouring lungs. Indeed, ~ 
it is good to endure privation of air for a season if only — 
to realise how lavish of His choicest gifts is a4 : 
Power that sways us all. 

Then to lie basking again, feeling that sweet nimind 
the true essence of life, coursing through every artery, 
tingling in every muscle, making one feel as if nothing — 
but action, swift, tremendous, exhausting, could — 
satisfy the exuberant needs of the body. Oh! the 
delight of just being alive. Is it amy wonder that 
even our majestic chief, yielding to the overmastering 
needs of such an influx of life, suddenly forgot his — 
dignity, rushed like a tidal wave along the glowing — 
surface of the ocean, and hurled his whole vast bulk © 
towards the sky by the exercise of a force beyond — 
calculation. After that one stupendous exhibition 
of power all lay in almost utter quiet, content so to lie. — 
The sun went down, the moon rose up and the pleasant — 


Exuberant Youth 19 


stars peeped out from the purple curtain of the night. 
No ripple of wave or querulous wail of wind disturbed 
the mid-sea quiet. Even the deep sigh of a waking 
whale but punctuated the soft stillness of the restful 
scene. All Nature was at ease around us, and above 
as below there was perfect peace. 

The foregoing was just a typical evening as I 
remember it during my babyhood. But one morning 
there was communicated to all the family by that 
subtle interchange of thought, independent of speech, 
which we possess, the chief’s order to proceed north- 
ward, following him. No one so much as thought 
of questioning his authority. He was our law and 
its only exponent. As well have questioned our 
ability to obey as his right to command. So as the 
great sun flooded the horizon with golden flame as if 
overflowing, we formed into ranks, and at a uniform 
speed of about six miles an hour, departed from that 
spot of ocean where I first knew life. I had no senti- 
mental regrets, the whole wide sea was my home. 
Nay, more; I felt an absorbing desire to know more 
of this apparently illimitable realm of waters which 
had given me a place of birth in one of its tiniest eddies. 
So I gambolled gaily along in the wake of the young 
bulls of the school, restraining with difficulty my 
desire to leap after the manner of the chief, and 
revelling in the cool depths to which we periodically 
descended in search of food. When I come to think 
of it with the calmness that befits my age, I feel 
impelled to assert that in those days I had but two 
overmastering desires, the desire to eat, and the desire 
to dissipate the abundant strength that my eating 
‘gave me. But withal, I knew how to obey, or rather 
shall I say, I knew not how to disobey the guidance 
of my leader. Like all young things I felt independent 


20 Autobiography of a Sperm Whale 


promptings to strike out a way of my own, but one — 
glance at him quenched all such aspirations and made — 
me feel how good it was to be permitted to follow so 
great a guide. 

Very pleasantly passed a space of six days and 
then a whole wide area of new pleasures met my 
delighted senses. Whither we were bound I did not 
know, but now I can tell you that we made the Bab-el- 
Mandeb, no gate of tears to me, but a veritable portal 
of joy. During that short passage, so rich in life are 
the tepid Indian Seas, even my small body had become 
quite encrusted with parasitical growths, barnacles 
and moss and tiny limpets. They worried my tender 
skin, they fretted me beyond bearing, and so, when 
I saw the jagged surfaces of coral at the gate of the 
Red Sea, I rushed, as did my fellows, to chafe my ~ 
irritated body. along those gratefully corrugated 
summits of the edifices below. Ah! another joy; 
to drag oneself luxuriously over those myriad needle- 
points of coral, every touch sending a thrill of delight 
from fluke-edge to spiracle—yes, indeed, it was worth 
all the miserable days of annoyance preceding it to 
know the sweetness of the relief. 

And then the food. Here was found in fullest 
abundance all that the sea had to offer us. Massy ~ 
shoals of lazy fish that, needing no inducement, just — 
swam serenely down the gaping caverns of our jaws, 
cuttles of medium size but soft and sapid, that without 
any attempt at resistance allowed themselves to drift 
gelatinously into the warm haven of our stomachs. 
Ah! the Red Sea is a good place. Yet one serious 
drawback we all found. By reason of our bulk (I may 
say ‘our’ now I have attained perhaps the maximum 
size allotted to the Sperm Whale) we were often com- 
pelled to give the shallow shores a wide berth. But 


SPERM WHALES AT DINNER. 


(To face p. 20. 


Happy Days We 


in the mid-sea there was no peace. From the incessant 
churning up and befouling of the water there was no 
escape. Methinks that all the land-driven monsters 
using the sea as their highway did concentrate there. 
And when I saw one of them strike the black scarp of 
Jebel Zukur and fall apart in shards I was gravely 
content. Why should all the sea be given up to the 
business or pleasure of those who rule all the land ? 
thought I, nor did I give one jot of mental effort to 
the problem of why it was that we, the seed-royal of 
the sea, were now no longer hunted by men. Like 
most of my fellows, I was all-content to take the good 
as it came, never to anticipate evil unless compelled 
by instinctive prescience, but to live and enjoy the 
passing day, taking no thought for what might be 
coming. 

Here in this pleasant sea we remained for many 
months. Nought of harm, of annoyance came near 
us so long as we kept to east or west of a well-defined 
line drawn down the middle of the sea. We lay and 
luxuriated in the rich sea-pastures within the sheltering 
reef-barriers, fearing nothing and fattening upon the 
never-failing stores of rich food around us. We had 
but to lie still, open wide our mouths and let them fill. 
What wonder that we all grew fat and slothful, all, 
that is, who had attained their full growth. The other 
youngsters and myself grew amazingly, for not only 
did we eat all that we felt inclined to, but like all young 
things, rejoicing in our perfect life and full freedom, 
we gambolled, we raced, and did all that the abundant 
vitality within us prompted us to do, and there were 


’ none to say us nay. And so the happy days passed, 


none taking count of them, all too intent upon enjoy- 
ment of the present to think of the future, until. one 
morning our great chief gave the gathering signal, 


22 Autobiography of a Sperm Whale 


and was instantly obeyed. For with us there is no 
half-hearted or unwilling obedience. We choose our ~ 
chiefs for their ruling qualities, and having chosen 
them it never occurs to us-to disobey them or grumble 
at their orders. We know that they are fit to rule us, 
and we delight toobey. And when they are, by reason 
of advancing age or sickness or any infirmity, unfit to 
maintain their proud position any longer, we depose 
them unhesitatingly. We know we must be led, must 
have a chief, but we know that he must be best of the 
very best. Nor can he hold his position one day after 
he has fallen from our high standard. 

In a close compact body, we left the pledéatit 
purlieus of the Red Sea, and without deviating from 
our direct course, except to clear Sokotra, we made 
our way southward. Now I began to feel the benefit 
of our long stay in the abundant waters we had just 
quitted. Because here there was almost nothing for 
us toeat. True, as we passed through the blue depths 
in stately ranks an occasional shoal of fish would swim 
down our gaping throats, or a passing school of por- 
poises find permanent shelter in the vast maws of our 
elders. But these were incidental only. Nothing 
like the rich banqueting day after day, which had 
been our lot in the teeming sea behind us, But if 
we could feast when occasion offered, we could also 
fast when need arose. And need was laid upon us 
now. None but our chief knew whither we went, 
yet we followed him unfalteringly through those 
almost barren seas; barren, that is, so far as we 
were concerned. 

Without haste, yet resting not day nor night, we 
pursued our journey southward through the mighty 
silences of the sea. Once, and only ance, did we see 
anything to give us pause, and that was, as the water 


apy eS SN 
¥ oe ie, 


I Meet Man © 23 


began to chill, when we met one of those mighty fabrics 
made by men and driven by fire across the ocean. We 
had been so long immune from pursuit, or indeed 
interference of any kind, that we took little heed of 
her except just to avoid her great onward rush, and 
the deadly swirl of her tail. Full of curiosity to see 
what this wonderful surface-monster might be, I rose 
behind it, and putting forth all my vigour swam after 
it to get-a good view of it, when suddenly I heard a 
curious noise almost like the sound we make on a calm 
day when, lying upon the surface, we strike the water 
with our tails, and immediately I felt a burning, 
stinging pain run through me. I swerved in my 
course, and sought my companions, all of whom as 
I joined them put on their utmost speed in our original 
direction. For a time it seemed as if they avoided 
me, but, gradually, as the healing of the sea exercised 
its benignant effect upon the place in my side where 
I felt the pain, they closed i in upon me again and I was 
no longer shunned. 

Later, as we slowed down, our great chief deigned 
to halt near me and tell me what had really happened. 
He said that idle men and women (how I wondered 
what they were!) on board of these land-monsters 
or ships, possessing deadly things able to kill a long 
way off, did not hesitate to try and deprive of life, just 
for amusement, any of the sea-folk they saw. At which 
I wondered very much; for the earliest knowledge I 
absorbed was, never to kill but for food, and the news 
that there were creatures who killed for amusement— 
for pleasure—was very terrible to me. 

However, although the memory of that encounter 
has never left me, my wound healed so rapidly that I 
never once faltered in our southward rush, feeling 
stronger and more fit every day, as the good sea gave 


24 Autobiography of a Sperm Whale 


me of its strength, and the long feasting in the Red Sea 
came to its predestined and proper effect. The waters 
around me cooled and brought hunger—fierce, gnawing 
hunger. Yet there was little or nothing to eat. Our 
speed increased; without faltering or straggling we 
held steadily on, until one day, following our chief, 
we settled down, down, down. Deeper than ever I 
had dreamed of we went until, skirting the black bases 
of a mighty mountain range, we found our prey. 
Hundreds upon hundreds of enormous cuttle-fish, 
helplessly, slimily crawling about on the rocky floor 
or clinging with their myriad tentacles to the pillars 
of the earth, as with their huge eyes they saw us ap- 
proaching. There was no escape for them. Alone 
among the inhabitants of the deep seas, we were their 
masters and they our legitimate prey. 

We fell upon them in a body, and tore them limb 
from limb, feeling exquisite satistaction as the quivering 
succulent morsels glided down into our craving 
stomachs. I had devoured one huge fellow whose head 
had been bitten off by a big bull close to me, and was 
almost satisfied. Not quite, though; and with fresh 
ardour I flung myself into the fray, seizing a vast cuttle 
by the middle. He writhed round and enwrapped me 
with his far-reaching arms so that I could not get my 
mouth open. But my tail was free, and exerting all 
my strength I rose through the murky water dragging 
him with me. Fortunately, he had not had time to 
anchor himself to one of the rock bases. We reached 
the surface in a welter of foam, and there by my side 
was the chief, who, ranging up closely, seized some 
outlying tentacles of my prize, causing him to unclasp 
those that bound my jaw, and next moment the strong 
salt air of the sky was sending thrills of renewed life 
through my body. 


Feeling Power 25 


Many dangerous crises have been encountered by 
me since then, but in none of them have I felt so near 
my end as on that occasion. Had it not been for my 
chief, I must have been drowned. I, the child of the 
deep sea, born to sport with the wild waves in their 
utmost fury, or sink far beneath them into the darksome 
profundities of ocean caverns—I should have been 
drowned! But I was not, and when in the sweet 
moonlight all our company foregathered on the surtace, 
full fed, to lie in peace, lulled by the gentle rocking 
of the wavelets, I no longer regretted the peaceful 
tepid waters of the Red Sea. I had learned the 
delights of struggle and conquest. And I had been 
noticed by the chief ! 

Thenceforward I grew with amazing rapidity. 
I felt the gigantic power twisting the cable-like sinews 
of my flukes, knitting the columnar masses of my 
vertebre, and piling up the cushions of muscle around 
my bones. A great joy filled me. I needed an outlet 
for it. To show what I could do, to hurl myself venge- 
fully into the closely packed mass of advancing enemies, 
to lead the ranks of my fellows. . . . Why, oh why, 
was all the accumulated wisdom of my thousands of 
ancestors surging in my brain, but to impel me to 
great deeds? And here, frantically, I hurled myself 
out of the sea thirty feet into the air, unable longer to 
control the raging forces within. When I fell back 
into the foaming vortex beneath, I was relieved, yet 
still with that sense of superiority over all living things 
surging within me. Perhaps it was the bracing effect 
of that chill sea. For we were now well south, on the 
. Outskirts of the beautiful isles of New Zealand, and 
every nerve in our bodies was strung tense with the 
springing of new life. Day broke and showed us the 
towering precipices of the South Island, against which 


26 Autobiography of a Sperm Whale 


the monstrous rollers of the Southern Ocean hurled 
themselves vainly, retiring sullenly in clouds of spray 
and leagues of foam. It was a place of strife farthest 
removed from the Janguorous peace of our last resting- 
place that one could possibly imagine, yet inexpressibly 
grateful to me, who felt in all my members the need 
for vigorous action. This stern sea, those chill winds 
that howled over the whitening expanse of waters, 
sent the life bounding through my arteries, and I felt 
myself growing with abnormal rapidity, tongs to test 
my strength, eager to fight. 

Up out of the boiling foam there sprang a mighty 
mountain top, a pinnacle of rock that, reaching down 
into the darkening depths of that stern ocean, soared 
into the air as far again. And around it we circled 
feeding, for here food was even more abundant than 
within the Bab-el-Mandeb, my only standard of com- 
parison. The storm raged higher and higher, the great 
waves hurled themselves headlong from their world- 
encircling journey against the mountain base and 
whitened its summit with spray, but still, all unheeding 
their strife, we made our rounds feeding, ever feeding. 
For we had only to sink a few yards to be in profoundest 
peace, no tumult of wind and sea affected us, except 
favourably, in that the agitation of the whole oceanic 
mass in these comparatively shallow waters stirred up 
the creatures upon which we fed and made them 
easier to obtain. Gradually it dawned upon me that 


* our ranks were being augmented by many strangers. 


Whales I had certainly never seen before rubbed 
shoulders with me, but communicated no sign. Until 
when the next morning broke bleakly and cheerless 
over the foaming surface of the straits there were 
hundreds of our kind gathered, as if at’ some pre- 
arranged rendezvous for some defirlite purpose. I 


Mystery and Added Prowess 27 


felt a great pride at being one of this mighty concourse, 
this assemblage of the mightiest creatures living, and 
I had some dim idea that maybe I might distinguish 
myself in some manner among them; for I was now 
getting well grown, though far behind our noble chief 
in his gigantic majesty. 

It was a premonition full of truth, for on the third 
day after our arrival while in company with some 
hundreds of my fellows I lay basking in the clear sun- 
shine, the warning signal passed through me, telling 
of terrible danger very near. How it is communicated 
I cannot tell you; neither by speech nor sound of any 
kind are we apprised of the presence of an enemy, 
but in every fibre of our bodies we suddenly feel that 
danger is near. Only we do not know from whence 
it is coming. We are intensely on the alert, but that 
is all. I lay like most of my fellows upon the shining 
sea surface, my columnar head half out of the water, 
my body slightly arched and my tail quiveringly 
playing from side to side as if seeking to test the vibra- 
tions of the water. Suddenly an unfamiliar tremor 
ran through me (I heard nothing because with us 
hearing is almost a lost sense) and immediately I 
felt a sharp stinging pain shoot through my right 
side. Filled with rage as well as alarm, I sprang 
forward, feeling as I did a drag at the wound in my 
side. Instinctively I dived, turning a somersault 
beneath the water, and coming up with a furious rush 
about twenty yards astern of my former position. As 
I did so, I caught a glimpse of a strange white monster, 
long and narrow, with two slender legs on each side, 
and throwing my tail high, delivered a blow at it with 
all my force. I felt my stroke take effect, saw as I 
came to the surface again a quantity of strange frag- 
ments floating, but beyond all I felt the smarting, 


28 Autobiography of a Sperm Whale 4 


burning pain of my wound, and without seeking further — 
revenge, sank down, down, into the cool depths where ~ 
I knew no enemy could ever come. 

My fellows were all scattered far and wide; all 
cohesion or discipline seemed to have ended. What, 
then, could this dreadful calamity mean ? Was there 
an enemy before which even our splendid leader 
trembled and fled? And I felt full of fear and wonder 
as the dread possibilities of a supremely powerful foe 
having overtaken us surged through my brain. I 
remained down to the full limit of my endurance, 
seeing nothing of any of my companions during the 
time. But when I reached the surface again, I felt 
the rallying signal vibrating through my body, and 
hurrying in the indicated direction soon rejoined the 
school. Then I learned that the strange monster I 
had destroyed was a boat with men in it, who were 
armed with terrible weapons, compared to which our 
jaws and flukes were but clumsy and almost useless. 
They had wantonly attacked us for some reason of 
their own, and had succeeded in slaying two of our 
number, who, paralysed with alarm at the sudden 
onslaught, had made but a poor defence, and had 
fallen comparatively easy victims. Me the great 
chief singled out for high honours. He told me that 
I had begun well; that having once realised my own 
power, and been successful in repelling this savage 
attack, I should be far more formidable to man than 
any whale could be who had never been assailed. 
For my wound was after all but a trifle, only a long 
trailing thing behind it made it gall me. My chief, 
however, advised me to take no heed of it. It would 
soon cease to annoy me, for either the tooth imbedded 
in my blubber would be dragged out by the trailing 
weight behind, or the weight would drop off and leave 


Pov esssseye 


on, 
~ 
w 


THE CACHALOT’S DEATH STRUGGLE. 
(Seep 35- 


A Land of Ice 29 


the weapon buried in my body, when the healing sea 
would soon close up the wound. 

Then, feeling that such a neighbourhood was un- 
pleasant to remain in, our chief led us farther south, 
to where a group of mountains just raised their heads 
from the tremendous depths to a little above the 
surface. Here, he said, he had never known man come 
even in the days when few haunts of our people were 
secure. Yet here we had almost all lost our lives 
through a singular misfortune which befell us. We 
had entered a little bay scooped out of one of the 
mountain-sides, with a very narrow neck, not much 
larger than would admit one of us at a time. At the 
entrance it was shallow, but within it widened and 
deepened so much that it was an ideal place to rest in, 
while from the surface on either side the steep walls 
of cliff rose sheer for a great height. And it was 
literally crawling with huge cuttles, our natural and 
greatly-loved food. 

Here we were feeding in perfect content, and I had 
almost forgotten my recent adventure, when suddenly 
a chill struck through my very marrow; I felt as if 
my vital forces were about to cease their duties. We 
all felt it at the same time—that dread cold which is 
the horror of the Sperm Whale, and makes him avoid, 
as if it were a plague-spot, the vicinity of ice. But, 
the first shock of alarm over, we sought the cause, and 
found to our dismay that the narrow entrance was 
entirely blocked by a monstrous iceberg, which had 
drifted in there and become jammed between the jaws 
of the pass. So were we all prisoners, and at the mercy 
of the cold, nor could our instincts tell us how great 
’ the danger was or what were our chances of escape. 
My first impulse was to dash wildly at that great white 
wall that blocked the way to liberty ; but, fortunately, 


30 Autobiography of a Sperm Whale 


I restrained myself, and following the example of my 
chief, went on feeding, instinctively realising that 
much: food was needed to keep out the effects of the 
cold. 

So for several days and nights we remained in this 
prison, eating throughout every waking hour. I kept 
returning to the icy barrier, much as I hated and feared 
it, and even forced myself to try and wriggle beneath 
it. And at last, as I was burrowing like a sand-groper, 
I felt a sudden trembling of the whole vast mass above 
me, and with a crash as if of an earthquake I was hurled 
forward full twenty times my own length and lay 
stunned, bleeding, and helpless. I slowly rose to the 
surface without any volition of my own, and feebly 
spouting, felt my senses coming back to me. I was 
presently joined by my companions, whose admiration 
of me now was greatly increased, for they attributed 
their deliverance to me. But I had been so sadly 
ill-used by that tremendous blow that, had it not been 
for the stored-up energy of all the food I had been so 
plentifully devouring lately, and an exceptionally 
powerful physique, I should certainly have been un- 
able to keep up with the school, and should probably 
have died quietly or been slain by order of the chief. 
Our mighty race tolerates no weaklings or cripples. 
Putting forth all my powers, I accompanied the 
school to the Crozets, where another rich feeding- 
ground awaited us, and by the time we quitted there 
I was not only fully restored to my usual vigour, 
but was rapidly approaching the dimensions of our 
leader. 

Now in a community like ours there are just three 
ruling motives, each causing us to exercise all our 
powers. First, the desire for food. Instinct assisted 
by training teaches us whales to find it, and to that 


Pride of Race 31 


search everything is subordinated. Our vast bodies re- 


: quire so much nourishment, and that of a certain kind, 


that we must place this need before all others. More- 
over, we are, as compared with the smaller denizens 
of the sea, upon many of which we might feed were it 
possible to catch them, very slow and clumsy in our 
movements. The gigantic cuttle-fish alone, which hides 
its mighty gelatinous bulk in the submarine caves at the 
roots of the mountains is capable of satisfying our 
enormous appetites and of being fairly easily obtained. 
Creatures of smaller bulk and lesser prowess than ours 
it does not fear. They become its comparatively easy 
prey. But we are invincible, invulnerable; against 
our onslaught no cuttle-fish can defend itself when we 
are full grown. 

This then is our primal need, as indeed it is of most 
creatures that live, although many are able to subordin- 
ate it to other needs for long periods at a time, notably 
the seals. Next comes the love motive, the intense 
over-mastering desire to have wives and children, and 
coupled with it, really a consequence ef it, the desire for 
supremacy over our fellows. These two last only apply 
to the males; our females are almost like beings of 
another race, so inferior to us are they in size, in agility, 
in ferocity. The full-grown Sperm Whale cow never 
exceeds in size half the dimensions of the full-grown 
bull, and is, moreover, a gentle, timid creature whose 
one object is to keep near her lord, to obey his lightest 
sign, and who will cheerfully remain by his side and die 
with him if he be in danger of death. As I have before 
hinted they are not fond mothers, taking the earliest 
possible opportunity of shaking off the yoke of maternal 
cares, but they endeavour to make up for this by their 
absolute devotion to the head of the family. 

The young bulls are in an anomalous position. For 


32 Autobiography of a Sperm Whale 7 


a long time they are mere nobodies. They are of the — 


family, but have nothing to do with it but obey the 


lead of the chief. All the privileges of his leadership — 


are theirs, also the lore which he has accumulated 
gradually passes to them as they follow him about the 
oceans of the world. They cannot help learning, for 
imitation is one of the primary laws of their being, which 
they can no more disobey than they can help feeling 
hungry. And all they have to do is to eat and grow; 
love affairs do not trouble them until they are full- 
grown. Then, when instinct compels them to cast 
amorous glances upon the young cows of about their 
own age, another instinct warns them that before love 
must come war. And so it comes to pass that ata 
certain period in the life of the school there are furious 
battles between the young bulls, battles that sometimes 
result in the death of one or both of the combatants, 
and sometimes in that terrible disablement and dis- 
figurement known as twisted jaw, where the bone of the 
long mandible-like lower jaw is wrenched to one side, 
at right angles to the line of the body. Then the 
sufferer is thrust out of the school, never again to know 
the fellowship of his kind, but to wander unsatisfied 
and lonely until his lif2’s end. The victor in the battle, 
upon which the great chief of the school looks gravely 
and with perfect impartiality, may then form a school 
of his own. He proudly selects for himself wives from 
among the young cows and departs to use for himself 
the wisdom he has learned during his adolescence. 

So the making of new families goes on until finally 
there arises a young bull who, seeing that the leader is 
not so fierce or so agile as of old, feels called upon to 
put his headship to the test and haply succeed in driving 
him from his place and filling the same himself more 
efficiently. Then a tremendous fight ensues, lasting 


Ve 


My Ambitions 33 


- sometimes from the rising to the setting of the sun. 
And the outcome is often that the old king is beaten, 
deposed, and driven forth to wander solitary, it may be 
for many years, through the wide oceans where once he 
ranged as an ocean monarch, leader of a great family, 
but now doomed to finish his journey alone. 

Now in this long digression I have sought to show 
the customs of our people as regards family life, for the 
reason that to me was rapidly approaching the time 
when I must needs do battle with my peers for the right 
to lead. I had no choice, nor did I desire any. I felt 
keenly eager to fight, the more so because my two 
exploits had already brought me fame, as it is under- 
stood by us, and also because there were several win- 
some cows who looked lovingly upon me. They kept 
near me in the school when we were on our passages, 
in spite of the jealous efforts made by the other young 
bulls to edge between us. Many attempts were made 
to provoke me to fight, but I disregarded them all. 
Mine was a loftier aim, a higher ambition. I aspired 
to leadership of the school, although there was no sign 
visible that our chief was growing too old tolead. All 
the more glory I felt, for me, if I could overcome him 
and take his place. 

Consequently battle after battle took place among 
my young fellow-bulls, and several new families were 
founded and led away, as we journeyed about the oceans 
of the world. One battle royal took place in the Indian 
Ocean, near where I was born, and a contemporary of 
my own, born three days after me, led off four young 
cows triumphantly. Another founded a new family 
on the coast of Japan, another off the Sandwich Islands, 
‘another in the North Atlantic, where a great ship-full 
of men and women paused to view the fight and held 
their breath to see how fiercely strove the monarchs 


3 


34 Autobiography of a Sperm Whale 


of the deep, though knowing nothing of the cause of — 
quarrel or of the prize of victory. d 

Still I bided my time, to the wonder of my compan — 
ions, until a younger generation was fast approaching — 
the time when it too would attain to full whalehood © 
and free citizenship of the ocean. Meanwhile, I always — 
kept close to the chief, watching his every movement, 
noting all his wise ways, and absorbing all that he had — 
to teach, until at last, as we fed around the bases of that — 
lonely rock in mid South Atlantic, Inaccessible Island, — 
while the furious southern storm raged around us and © 
lifted its vast waves towards the sky, I calmly chall- — 
enged his supremacy. He had given the signal to — 
depart northwards in consequence of the inclemency ~ 
of the sea. And I questioned his wisdom. I pointed — 
out that here was abundant food, that the storms did — 
not affect us, that all were well content to remain here — 
but he, and that it appeared as if the leadership of such — 
a school as we were was becoming a task beyond his — 
powers. Other family matters I touched upon which ~ 
need not be enlarged about here, such as the dwindling 
numbers of our new calves, quite insufficient to supply 
the waste of departures. And I concluded by offering — 
to contest the headship with him at once. 

During all this time the rest of the school lay in a 
wide circle of which we two were the centre, their huge — 
black bodies almost motionless, like wave-beaten rocks — 
protruding above the surface of the foaming sea. He 
and I lay nearly head on to each other without move- — 
ment, not seeing each other, but that mysterious sense ~ 
of ours, which I have before mentioned, in full activity. 
Well was it for me that I had waited so long, and had 
rehearsed to myself all possibilities of his behaviour 
when I should challenge him. For suddenly, as if 
hurled by a stupendous wave, he launched himself at — 


I Win the Headship 35 


nie—and missed me by a yard, for I had felt him coming 
and given one tremendous sweep with my flukes that 
had carried me forward and downward withal. Keeping 
just beneath the surface I felt for him cautiously, every 
sinew tense for the blow I meant to deal when I should 
touch him. But I had for an adversary one of the 
wiliest as well as mightiest of Sperm Whales, and my 
only hope of victory, apart from the chances of accident, 
was to copy his tactics with that rapidity of learning 
which is our birthright, and trust to my superior youth 
and consequent vigour to put them into practice for 
his defeat. 

So we circled around each other warily, he occasion- 
ally making one of his awful rushes either under or 
above water, according to our position at the time, for 
while life remains to us we must obey the irresistible 
call of our lungs, and rise or sink in accordance there- 
with. I kept strictly on the defensive, husbanding my 
strength for the first sign of my old rulet’s weakening, 
and so, without harm done to either, the long fierce 
day rolled slowly on. Then I noticed that his rushes 
were not so vigorous, he was losing his caution, and also 
his temper, for every silent taunt that we know so well 
how to convey without making a sound, he was now 
using profusely. 

Suddenly I saw my opportunity ; he was lying in 
such a position that he could not see me, and his vast 
lower mandible hung down temptingly, a gleaming 
white bar against the deep blue of the sea. Without 
making a ripple I arched my body nearly double, then 
releasing the tension sprang forward at him, turning 
_ withal and gripping his jaw in mine. The ocean boiled 
with our efforts, he to free himself andI to holdon. At 
last came a rending crack, I felt the jaw give in mine, 
and knew that I was victor. Releasing my hold I 


36 Autobiography of a Sperm Whale 7 ; 


sprang to the surface and awaited his coming. Assoon — 
as he appeared I rained blows upon him with my tail — 
until all motion on his part ceased, and he lay, except — 
for the gentle wash of the waves about his limp body, — 
quite supine. I immediately mustered the school, gave — 
the signal of command, and in a compact body we all — 
sped away, leaving our late chief to enter into a new ~ 
sphere of usefulness in the bodies of the myriad scaven- 
gers of the sea already hastening to the enormous ~ 
banquet I had spread for them. a 
Thenceforward I led the school triumphantly 
through the various oceans for many years. But I ~ 
never allowed a young bull to linger when it was time — 
that he should go. If he refused the combat I would 
drive him out ; I would have no one wait for me as I did © 
for my chief, although I had little to fear, for I had © 
become even a mightier monarch than he, and wiser by ~ 
far, I knew. Yet never did I get an opportunity to — 
show my wisdom’s ripest fruitage until one day off the ~ 
old Solander again, where I first felt the touch of that — 
horrible barbed weapon: I knew that there were — 
enemies about. I ordered all my tribe to make full 
speed to the westward, while I remained to guard their — 
retreat; and wonderfully they obeyed me. In the © 
space of three spouts they had disappeared, gliding — 
along beneath the sea at top speed. I lay as if asleep, — 
but by an almost imperceptible motion of my flukes — 
gradually turning, turning, so that when three of the — 
white monsters I remembered so well rushed upon me, ~ 
I, seeing them coming, suddenly turned a full somersault — 
and fell among them. One was crushed to fragments, — 
the other two strove to escape, but I hurled myself — 
after them, as the dolphin after the flying-fish, and ~ 
presently they had both fallen into morsels under my ~ 
furious blows. Then, calming down at once, I followed — 


My Serene Adolescence 37 


in the wake of my family, sedately satisfied, but resolved 
never to tempt my fortune and that of those dear to 
me, by venturing on the Solander Ground again. 

And now I think I must conclude my story. I am 
still in the full-tide of vigorous life, not yet more than 
half a century old, and probably destined to lead the 
school for another quarter of a century. Then it may 
be my fate to be ousted by one of my family and roam 
solitary for many seasons more. But I hope not. I 
would fain end my splendid career in battle at the jaws 
and flukes of one of my sons, who should be a worthy 
successor. Very pleasant my life has been to me, the 
few really dangerous meetings I have had with enemies 
having only served to heighten the delight of living. 
I have been, and am, fondly loved ; I have always been 
hungry, and always found food in abundance. I have 
traversed every sea, and been respectfully greeted by 
every form of sea-folk—they have even saluted me 
when about to enter the vast cavern of my stomach. 
My thick coating of creamy fat, the huge reservoir 
of oil I carry in my head, has grown richer and richer, 
until now I am wealthiest of my people: never have 
I seen one of them that would dare measure his might 
against mine. 

I inherit the pride of my splendid race. I know that 
we are the oldest of living created things, as well as the 
mightiest, and I rejoice to know that the persecution 
we once endured at the hands of the big-brained insects 
of the land is over now, or practically so. Every hour 
of my life isa delight. The swift, irresistible rush along 
the raging sea, or the soft gliding through balmy waters 

lit up by mellow sunshine, the sudden change as we 
sink into the cool, translucent depths, and the thrill 
as we seize the musky mollusc in his lair and, dragging 
him upwards, tear and devour his juicy, succulent flesh. 


38 Autobiography of a Sperm Whale 


The long, steady journey of thousands of miles, straight 
as the dolphin leaps, without molestation, with only — 
the happy company of our own people, and the long, 
pleasant days when, free from the necessity of watchful- 
ness, we take our fill of love, of food, and of sportive 
gambols: ah! these are the things that make our life 
in the deep, the beautiful sea, thrice happy. a 

There be many things about us that none can ever 
know but ourselves; our sickness, which produces — 
matter treasured by the greedy earthmen; our length 
of days; our small brains, but great intelligence—these 
are of the deep-sea secrets that pigmy man shall never — 
understand. But to you, my friend, because you have — 
loved us and striven to do us justice, I have revealed _ 
thus much, in the hope that the knowledge may stains. . 
you joy. And so, farewell ! 


CHAPTER III 


THE MYSTICETUS, OR RIGHT WHALE 


ARTLY because my acquaintance with him is so 
much less, and partly because I know that his 
intelligence is of a much lower order than that of 

the sperm whale, I shall not permit this huge creature 
to tell his own story. Indeed, I could not; for there is a 
secret connected with this particular whale which has 
never yet been revealed, nor, although it is a bold thing 
to say, does there seem any prospect that it will be. 
Briefly, it is, what does he do with himself during the 
long night of the Arctic regions, when open water, 


absolutely necessary to him as to other sea-mammals, 


is not obtainable, all the Polar Seas being locked under 
many feet of ice? Nothing can well be more certain 
than that he does not come south. He has never been 
seen in temperate waters, not though the enterprising 
whale-fishers, driven south by the encroaching ice at 
the approach of winter have sought him with infinite 
care. Where, then, does he~spend the long months of 
the Arctic winter, utterly dark but for the Northern 
Lights (Aurora Borealis), utterly unnavigable by any 
ice-breaker known ? 

Some have formulated a theory of an open Polar 
Sea, whither birds and mammals retire during this 
bitter time, but the idea is chimerical, untenable for 
a moment. If there is anything firmly settled con- 
cerning the Arctic regions it is that, whether any 


39 


40 The Mysticetus, or Right Whale 


explorer reaches the Pole or not, we know exactly the 1 


conditions which obtain there. In any case, only six 
hundred miles or so separate the farthest north of the 
explorer from that apex of the earth known as the 
North Pole, which when it ¢s reached will certainly be 
just the same dreary dismal expanse of hummocky ice 
or frozen snow-covered land that we already know so 
well. 

Where, then, does the Right Whale go in the winter? 
We do not know, but an easy and plausible assumption 
is that he hybernates beneath the ice as does the 
alligator in the mud, the bear in his hollow tree, the 
marmot, and the dormouse, not to speak of other 
hybernators or winter sleepers. As an assumption 
this must pass until we know, which does not seem 
at all a likely thing to happen. 

The Right Whale of the Arctic Seas, Bowhead of 
the North Pacific, is probably, individual for individual, 
the largest of all God’s creatures. But there is some 
little doubt as to his being larger than the sperm whale, 
because whalemen calculate the sizes of their gigantic 
victims by the number of barrels of oil they yield. 
Now the sperm whale, ranging temperate and tropical 
seas, does not need, and therefore does not carry, a 
great thickness of blubber over his flesh. True, the 
reservoir of spermaceti in his head does something to 
equalise this, but not enough. The greatest yield of 
oil and spermaceti from any sperm whale that I have 
been able to obtain any information about was sixteen 
tons, while I have heard of several cases of Bowhead 
in the Behring Sea trying out nearly twenty-five, 
blubber alone, since they have no spermaceti. Yet 
I feel sure, judging by experience, that the sixteen-ton 
sperm whale would be bulkier than the more thickly 
clad Bowhead. However, let it go, it’s a moot point, 


——— ee ee hoe ee 


The Easeful Whale AI 


and whalers generally seem to be agreed that there is 
not much to choose between these monsters in point 
of size. That is as regards one sex, but the females 
of the Mysticetae are, asa rule, larger than the males, 
while, as I have before said, the sperm whale cow never 
exceeds half the size of the bull. 

Their lives, by a curious contrast with the sperm- 
whale, are spent in slow-going, easy fashion. In spite 
of their terrific surroundings of crashing ice-bergs, 
ice-fields heaving under the tremendous pressure of 
the storm wave, and bitter blighting winds laden with 
death to any alien intruder into that stern domain, 
the Right Whales are placid, quiet, peaceful; with 
an appearance of great content with their surroundings. 
The Almighty has ordained that these vast denizens 
of the frozen Northern Seas shall be at no pains to 
secure an abundant supply of food, and by one of those 
paradoxes that Nature seems to delight in, that food 
for the supply of the largest of created things is made 
up of the accumulated myriads of ocean’s smallest 
denizens, that is, of those actually visible. From the 
crow’s-nest of a whale-ship on a clear day the watcher 
may see the ocean lined out in parti-coloured bands 
of red and blue, strangely regular and extending to 
the horizon’s verge. A draw-bucket plunged into 
one of the red bands a hundred feet in breadth will 
bring up a motley collection of minute shell-fish, a 
crawling, clinging mass of life that has its basis of 
subsistence in the unseen fauna of the fecund sea. 

These tiny crustacea in their myriads await the 
advent of the Right Whale, who ranging lengthwise 
along the red bands, inhales his food without an effort 
until the enormous cavity of his mouth is filled with 
untold thousands of tiny shell-fish quite unconscious 
of their transition. Then the wonderful apparatus 


42 The Mysticetus, or Right Whale 


developed by this great cetacean comes into play. — 
He bears dependent from his upper jaw a series of — 
broad plates of gristly substance, the ‘whale’ one’ — 
of commerce (though nothing could be less like bone). — 
These blades, like those of a scythe, depend by their © 
broad ends from the upper jaw, leaving their taper — 
extremities swinging free in the great scoop of the — 


lower jaw. Their outer edges, like the back of the 


scythe-blade, are thickish, their inner edges are fringed, — 


hair-like ; and interlacing each other, they form together 


a perfect natural sieve. Between their rows at the © 
bottom of the lower jaw lies an immense mass of fat — 


of nearly two tons weight in the full-grown subject, 
the tongue. And, the mouth being full, this great 


tongue slowly rises and forces out the water through — 


the sieve, until there remains only a heap of tiny 


creatures out of their element and sliding gradually — 


down a pipe of one and a half inches in diameter, the 
gullet of the Right Whale, which has led to so many 
strange errors as to the swallowing capacity of whales 
in general. 


As the Right Whale, alone of all the sea-mammals, _ 


feeds in this marvellous way, so he alone of all whales 


has this strangely constricted gullet, a curious contrast j 


again with the sperm whale, who can swallow morsels 
of truly heroic size, at least six feet cube in the adult. 
One point more in this connexion ; it used to be sup- 
posed that the Right Whale, having filled his mouth 
with food, pumped the water out through his spiracles 
or blow-holes, until it was discovered that the breathing 


apparatus of all sea-mammals is entirely unconnected. — 


with their mouths, and that it is an absolute impos- 
sibility while they live for any water to gain access to 
their breathing channels. The real process is as I have 
described. 


— 


Ie 


The Killer Whale 43 


As with the sperm whales, so among the Right 
Whales the school or family obtains, but in far smaller 


~ numbers, and, indeed, it is not uncommon to see a 


bull, two cows, and two calves comprising the whole 
family. Moreover, there is none of that fierce com- 


petition for the headship of the school so characteristic 


of the great mammal of the tropical seas. Fights 
between Right Whale bulls are unknown, at least to 
man ; indeed, they seem far too ponderous and sluggish 
in their movements to indulge in such violent exercise 
as fighting. Placid, timorous, and slothful are their 
lives, and even while being done to death by whale- 
hunters they seem incapable of retaliation or even 
escape, unless indeed some friendly floe is near, some 
ice-field beneath which they may dive, and haply 
through carelessness on the part of their aggressors, 
drag the latter after them to a swift but horrible end 
beneath that frozen covering. This sluggishness or 
helplessness is partly due to their shape and immense 
hampering of fat, in many cases two feet in thickness 
over the greater part of their bodies. But it may be 
more reasonably referred to their food costing them 
no effort to obtain it, and so abundant that they are 
never found, except in extreme old age or sickness, 
suffering from any lack of fatness. 

A typical instance of this may be found in the ease 
with which the fierce Orca gladiator, or killer whale, 
attacks and overcomes them. He is rarely one- 
hundredth of their vast bulk, but he has enterprise, 
and teeth in both jaws. So he, with half-a-dozen 
companions, will fall upon a huge Mysticetus, and in 


a few minutes reduce him to a helpless island of flesh 


with drooping lower jaw. Through that vast opening 
of his mouth the pirates enter fearlessly and devour 
the succulent tongue, disturbing for the first time a 


44 The Mysticetus, or Right Whale 


whole tribe of suckers (Remora) who have up till 
then had free warren in the roof of the whale’s mouth, 
true parasites, without aught to strive for or a need 
unsatisfied. Then the vast victim, his agile slayers 
gone, becomes the prey of ocean’s tribes of scavengers, — 
ever ready anywhere in that mighty so-called waste 
of water to attend to their duty of keeping ocean — 
sweet. Birds above and fish below labour furiously — 
at the task of ridding the sea of its incubus, and in a — 
very short time they succeed, the immense framework — 
of bone slowly disintegrating and sinking into those ~ 
silent, unknown depths. a 

Nor is the Orca the only sea foe, as distingatlell 
from man, that the Mysticetus has to fear. The — 
swordfish (Xiphias), a huge species of mackerel, with — 
a short sturdy shaft of bone protruding from his upper — 
jaw, which is capable of penetrating six inches of solid — 
oak when the two to six-hundred-pound body behind 
it gathers its full momentum, attacks the Mysticetus — 
with almost maniacal fury, although it cannot do an — 
adult much harm except by way of worry. For the ~ 
shortness of the sword (lance it ought really to be called — 
from its shape) does not admit of its penetrating beyond ~ 
the blubber of an adult Mysticetus, except in non-vital 
parts. Still, the swordfish is a valuable ally to the 
killer, with whom he often joins forces, while to the 
young calves he is destruction itself. It is a sight not 
easily to be forgotten: the long lithe body of the 
swordfish gliding through the sea with incredible 
swiftness, like a streak of light of deeper blue than 
the surrounding sea, and, meeting the body of a three- 
months calf, enter it as if it were thin air. A dexterous 
twist of the broad tail and the weapon is withdrawn. 
A gush of blood stains the water brown, and amid the 
murky surroundings the repeated stabs of the lance, 


A RIGHT WHALE AND ITS FOES. 


[See p. 44. 


A Huge Victim v 45 


the writhings of the victim, and the frantic tearing of 
masses of flesh from its body, are hidden, or only 
revealed by a few hurried glimpses. 

Yet another enemy has the unfortunate Right 
Whale; really unfortunate, since it does not prey 
upon its fellow-citizens, except in the same sense in 
which we prey upon the animalcule in our drinking- 
water—the ‘thresher’ shark (Alopecias vulpes). Here 
I am aware that I am upon highly controversial ground, 
since very eminent professors of natural history deny 
that the thresher does attack the whale. They say, 
with what warrant I fail to understand at all, that 
what the sailor has mistaken for the attack of the 
thresher on the whale has been the antics or gambols 
of the hump-backed whale, which has long arms 
(fifteen feet or so), and is fond of waving them in the 
air and bringing them down upon the water with a loud 
smack. They are entirely wrong. The hump-backed 
. whale I have watched very many times at his play, 
and though he does wave his arms he does not smack 
the water with them but with his tail. Also, I have 
seen the thresher shark attacking the whale at close 
quarters, so close indeed that every movement of the 
shark and his victim was plainly visible, and I can 
hardly imagine any one mistaking the gambols of the 
whale for this curious attack. The shark appears to 
balance himself upon his head in the water, with the 
whole of his enormous flail-like flukes in the air at 
the moment of striking ; then, when the blow has been 
delivered there is a quick descent and return, like 
the lashing of a gigantic whip, while the blows are 
audible for two miles on a calm day. So heavy are 
they that strips of blubber are cut by them from the 
back of the hapless whale four to six inches wide, and 
two to five feet in length. Here, again, it is the worry 


46 The Mysticetus, or Right Whale — 
that kills, not the wounds, which are quite superficial 
and probably cause little actual pain. In fact, the — 
death of the whale is seldom compassed by thresher 


or swordfish alone, but nearly always in active asso- 
ciation with a group of killers. 


Seeing, then, how he is begirt with enemies, and — 


how for his valuable spoil men have always hunted 


him into the farthest navigabie recesses of his habitat, — 


it appears almost miraculous how he has survived until . 
the present day. Yes, and it is even more marvellous — 


when one remembers that, as compared with all the 


other species of whales, his range is exceedingly limited. — 


The Arctic seas when freest from ice form but a very 
small portion of the watery surface of the globe. Small, — 


| 
: 
4 


that is, comparatively ; yet large enough to admit : 
of these gentle monsters eluding their many enemies — 


sufficiently to perpetuate the race, even through the 


fierce war made upon them all through the last two — 
centuries, when ships from all the Northern European — 


nations frequented the Arctic seas in search of them. 
Here, probably, came in the saving power of that 
mysterious winter disappearance. For at least six 
months of each year the Mysticetae enjoyed a close 
season that man, at any rate, was unable to break into, 
and it is highly probable that their other enemies also 
departed south. Be that as it may, we are confronted 
with the remarkable fact that, incapable of effective 
flight or of self-defence, eagerly sought after by man 
and agile sea enemies, confined to one little corner of 
the earth periodically frozen solid, the vast Right 
Whale still exists, and as recently as the year 1900 
was so numerous that ships in the Pacific actually 
took but the baleen of the whales they caught and let 
the blubber go, since they had so many fish they could 
not possibly flench them. 


The Whale’s Early Days 47 


Like the sperm whale, the Right Whale is an in- 
different parent, and the young one learns as soon after 
birth as possible to attend to its own requirements. 
It grows with great rapidity, absorbing a prodigious 
quantity of milk from the mountainous breasts of its 
mother, milk as thick as the richest cream and yellowish 
in colour. At. this period of its life the young whale 
is slender and almost graceful in shape, agile and full 
of play as all young creatures are; but it soon settles 
down into the ponderous stately movements of the 
elder whales, and becomes like them a snug abiding- 
place for hosts of external parasites, such as barnacles, 
limpets, and whale-lice—creatures somewhat like the 
garden wood-louse, but larger, and with tenacious 
barbed claws, whereby to hold on to the slippery body 
of their huge host. One of the greatest pleasures in 
life for them is to chafe their bodies—irritated, one 
would think, unbearably—against the rugged sides of 
some mass of ice. Occasionally they may be seen 
doing this beneath an icefloe; then, when the need 
comes upon them for breathing, they calmly rise and 
break a hole with the crown of their heads where the 
double openings of the spiracles or blowholes are 
situated. They remain under water for as long as an 
hour and a half, and must remain above for a corre- 
sponding time, no matter how great their peril—from 
man, for instance. A certain number of breathings 
is an imperative necessity to all whales, and no irre- 
gularity or lessening of their number can be endured, 
no, matter what the circumstances may be, while life 
lasts. 

In these days the life of a Right Whale is fairly 
placid and uneventful. True, there are a few, but a 
very few, ships that still enter the icy seas each year 
and catch some Right Whales ; but compared with a 


+ 


48 The Mysticetus, or Right Whale j 


century and a half ago, when hundreds of vessels 
eagerly searched every nook of those otherwise lonely 
northern seas, and populous wooden towns sprang up 
where the blubber of the whale was-boiled down, for 
transshipment by vessels chartered for the purpose, — 
the Arctic regions are now deserted. Soon, very soon, — 
they will revert to their primitive condition before 
whaling became an industry at all, and the great 
Greenland Whale will peacefully roam his quiet 
waters unmolested by any save his natural enemies. _ 

Closely akin to the Right Whale of Greenland is — 
the Southern Right Whale, or Balaena australis. 
There are a few unimportant differences as regards 
outline, the Southern Whale being somewhat slenderer, © 
slightly more ‘clipper built,’ as sailors say. Structur- — 
ally the two are almost identical, but as regards habitat 
exceedingly different. Unlike his northern congener, — 
the Southern Right Whale not only does not stick 
closely to the vicinity of the ice, and to all appearance — 
hide beneath it all the winter, but he really seems to — 
prefer the waters outside of the Antarctic Circle, and 
is found in large numbers as far north as the Cape of 
Good Hope. His best-loved region would appear to © 
be, roughly, the vast stretch of ocean between 30° and ~ 
65° S. He is especially fond of the vicinity of land, © 
and half a century ago, in addition to a goodly fleet 
of vessels, mostly French, cruising in those regions in — 
search of him, there were many shore whaling stations, — 
established at some point where there was good har- 
bourage and facility for dealing with the gigantic © 
prizes. The crews of these stations were usually a — 
motley, hard-bitten crowd, co-partners, fierce, and — 
careless of risk to life or limb. They chased the whale — 
from shore in their boats, and having killed him had © 
a herculean task to tow him back. The work both of 


The Unobservant Sailor 49 


hunting and realising the spoil was terrific, and it 
alternated with long spells of absolute idleness, when 
whales came near enough to be attacked, or for some 
reason none were seen at all. Yet there was a savage 
freedom about it which appealed to those rough repre- 
sentatives of many lands, and apparently it pleased 
them well, in spite of its appalling dangers, terrible 
hardships, and scanty rewards. 

A singular circumstance connected with the haunts 
of the Southern Right Whale is noteworthy, as showing 
how little of a naturalist or observer the sailor is. 
During the Antarctic expedition of the eighteenth 
century, all the log-keepers, with the exception of 
Captain Weddell, who was a whale-fisher, were enthu- 
siastic in their reports of the enormous number of valu- 
able whales (Right and Sperm Whales are repeatedly 
mentioned) in those tormented seas during the southern 
summer. Now the fact is, as one or two whaling 
expeditions have discovered to their cost, that the 
sperm whale is never found south of the Antarctic 
Circle, and the Right Whale hardly ever. These two 
species, practically the only ones commercially valuable 
enough to warrant the outfitting of ships for an ocean 
voyage in order to catch them, prefer to avoid those 
stern regions, and the whales seen and repeatedly 
logged by the crews of the ‘ Erebus’ and ‘ Terror’ were 
of a totally different and almost valueless species, such 
as no ships are sent long voyages after. It would seem 

as if life in those tremendous regions adjacent to the 
eternal barrier of Antarctic ice, and the great southern 
continent, was altogether too strenuous for a leisurely 
monster like a Right Whale, even though the southern 
Mysticetus is so much smarter both in appearance and 
agility than his great northern congener. There, where 
the awful sea of the south, unhindered in its world- 


4 


50 The Mysticetus, or Right Whale 


engirdling sweep, makes the ice-islands toss and whirl 


like chips in a mill-race—where, even in summer, 


—— 


the weather is more severe than in our worst winters, — 
and gale follows gale with a monotony of fury that is 
amazing—there is no place for either men or animals — 
except those fully equipped for, and indifferent to, the 


hardest weather on our planet. 
Little more remains to be said of the M ysticetus. 
In greater measure than his brother of the north, the 


Southern Right Whale is unmolested; indeed, it is 


doubtful whether a dozen individuals are taken in the 
course of a year, and those more by accident than 


design. Consequently. their numbers are increasing — 
rapidly, and as their favourite haunts are becoming less — 
and less disturbed by the passage of ships they are 
gradually, after two hundred years of terror, reverting q 
to their primitive condition of peaceful seclusion from — 
all foes except the three natural ones already mentioned, ~ 
so that in a few years it will be possible to sail, if 
yachtsmen are venturous enough, into great silent — 
spaces of sea embracing many thousands of square 


miles that are never furrowed by any ship’s keel, where 
the great mammals of the deep sea roam in immense 


herds fearlessly, because all unused to molestation, and — 


live their ordered, happy lives out to their full extent 
without any interference from man whatever, 


i lee 


CHAPTER IV 
THE HUMPBACK WHALE 


‘ aot! beyond the power of description, the 


islands of the Tonga group lay set in a sapphire 
sea under an azure sky flooded with golden sun- 


a light ; a little breeze blew, just sufficient to raise tiny 
_ wavelets fringed with snowy foam and sparkling as if 


set with millions of diamonds. Over the fringing coral 


_ barriers they curdled with a drowsy hum as of infinite 


content, as if they knew they were perfectly beautiful 
and perfectly fulfilling their appointed way. Only where 
the prevailing swell came thundering shoreward, fret- 
ting at finding its three-thousand-mile course hindered, 
was there any sign of the stress of elemental forces. 
There, with every recurring billow as it reached the coral 
barrier, rose a long thundering roll of breakers twenty 
feet high, dazzling white in striking contrast to their 
bases of deepest blue, and looking as if they would 
overwhelm the whole group of islands. Higher and 
higher they rose until, drooping, dejected, they owned 
their limitations and recoiled hissing, to make way for 
the next arrival. 

Towards: this fierce barrier there hurried nervously 
a mother Humpback Whale. She was of moderate 


_ Size, about forty-five feet long by thirty in girth, with 


flattened head and mouth fringed with scanty whale- 

bone. On her back she bore a dorsal erection like a 

dumpy fin, whence the trivial name ‘ Humpback.’ 
st 


52 The Humpback Whale 


But her chief visible peculiarity differentiating her from 
sperm and right whales, was the length of her arms. 
Unlike the almost rudimentary pectoral appendages of 
the cachalot and Mysticetus, her arms were nearly one- 
third of her length, justifying the Greek title bestowed 
upon her kind of ‘ great wings’ (megaptera). A close 
observer, had any such been at hand, would have noted 
that, as she swam straight for the reefs, she kept one of 
these long arms tightly pressed to her side, as if holding _ 
something of value. Stay, there were close observers, — 
hungry denizens of the deep sea following her and 
watching with ravenous eyes. They knew the nature — 
and value of her treasure, and, given but the slightest — 
opportunity, would have despoiled her of it. Butshe ~ 
well knew both of their unwelcome presence and their — 
sinister designs, and sought a haven of safety where : 
they dared not come. " 

Close to her side she hugged her newly born son, a 
slender dolphin-like creature about nine feet in length, — 
full of vigour and impatience of restraint, who struggled 
fiercely to get free. Since his birth she had not known 
a peaceful moment, for the Creator had endowed her — 
with so large a proportion of maternal love that the © 
mere feeling of ought happening to her offspring was — 
agony almost unbearable to her, while at the same 
time instinct warned her that the surrounding sea — 
simply swarmed with hidden enemies, ready at any © 
moment to deprive her of the joy of her life could they — 
but find her momentarily unwatchful. Therefore had 
she forgotten her lord and leader, her fellow mothers, — 
herself, all her being was centred upon the young one 
by her side and how to protect it from death. 

Closely escorted by at least half-a-dozen immense — 
sharks, she reached the Barrier Reef, sounded, and 
swam along its base until she came to an opening wide 


eae 
i re a 


aie emma oe 


i 


shame 


Scenes 


A MOTHER WHALE PURSUED BY SHARKS, 
{See p. 52. 


Delights of Motherhood 53 


enough to admit her. She dashed through and wound 
her way among the mazy interstices of the scattered 
reefs inside in the smooth placid lagoon until she 
reached a sort of natural little dock, where, with just 
sufficient water to float them, she and her baby might lie 
in perfect peace and security beyond the reach of those 
blood-thirsty creatures who had never left her since her 
little one came. Sweet, passing sweet it was to lie and 
bask in the full sun-glare, to feel the joyous gambolling 
of the youngling all around her, varied by an occa- 
sional tugging at her bounteous breast, to exhale lazy 
spoutings and watch the pretty tuft of vapour from 
the spiracle of her offspring, to lie, in short, so perfectly 
at peace as to forget that ever a danger existed. 

One drawback there was which she hardly felt—the 
lack of food. To feed it was necessary for her to go 
into deeper waters and that she dared not do yet. 
But this want, in spite of her enormous bulk, troubled 
her scarcely at all, she was quite content to starve 
awhile for the sake of her young one, who she knew 
would gain so rapidly in vigour every day spent in that 
calm retreat as to be able, before her supply of milk ran 
short through lack of nourishment, to accompany her 
far enough to find food in safety, to cruise among the 
islands and between the reefs where in deep water she 
could obtain the necessaries of life. All that, however, 
was matter that did not immediately concern her. 
For the time she was supremely happy in the conscious- 
ness of safety for her young one, in the knowledge that 
she was where none of her enemies could ever come. 

Poor thing, the limitations of her instinctive appre- 
hension of danger did not, could not warn her against 
man, the universal destroyer, man, whose skilful hand, 
active brain, and unscrupulous ferocity when directed 
against the lower animals, makes him their most terrible 


54 The Humpback Whale 


foe. So it came about that on the second day, just as 
the pearly dawn was breaking and a faint blush was 
tinging the summits of the sombre green hills, she lay 
as usual peacefully giving suck to her youngling, while 
the cool dimples of the water softly laved the happy 
pair. Suddenly she became conscious of the close 
proximity of danger, stiffened all her muscles while her 
tail vibrated slowly and her long arms reached out in 
agitated fashion to draw the young one into her side 
for shelter. Too late; a glittering harpoon flew over 
her back, aimed at her, but missing its mark and 
transfixing the calf, which instantly died. 

By some strange process of deduction, quick as 
thought, she knew the full extent of the calamity which 
had befallen her, and raising her mighty tail on high 


made sea and shore resound with the thunder of her ~ 


blows. So sudden was her transition from utter peace 
to the intensest fury of revenge, that the crew of the 
boat which had stolen up behind her through the narrow 
reef channel had no time to retreat. Bewildered by the 
rapidity and violence of the-blows, and blinded by the 
spray, they leapt overboard and climbed with torn 
hands and feet up the jagged surface of the reef, only 
about two feet under water. There they were safe 
from the whale, but in imminent danger should the sea 
rise of being dashed to fragments upon those myriad 
needlepoints of coral. Fearfully they beheld their 
infuriated victim frantically dashing their devoted boat 
into minute fragments, pausing momentarily at short 
intervals as if to listen for their whereabouts, if haply 
she might by any means compass their destruction also. 
Finally, after an exhibition of power and ferocity 
amazing to witness in one habitually so gentle, one also 
who would suffer her last drop of blood to be drained 
rather than retaliate while her calf was alive, in case 


Fate Ta 


Retribution 55 


she should accidentally do it any injury, she slowly 
milled round and headed seaward, stopping every few 
yards as if most reluctant to quit the scene of her loss, 
and manifesting in every movement the acutest grief 
at her great bereavement. At last, with accelerated 
speed, she left the reef and made for the open sea, where 
she speedily rejoined the school she had left and com- 
municated to them the fact of her great sorrow and its 
attendant circumstances. I cannot actually say that 
she received their condolences, but I am absolutely 
certain that all took solemn warning by her calamity, 
and as the best preventive against any similar accident 
to themselves all the prospective mothers determined 
to avoid the Tonga group as a place-of refuge. But 
as it was a splendid feeding ground, they remained in 
its immediate vicinity, sometimes cruising among the 
reefs and between the islands for the shoals of small fish 
and molluscs abundant there. 

One day the youngest bull of the party was suddenly 
attacked in the same mysterious manner as the hapless 
mother had been. But it was where the steep shores of 
the main island shelved away abruptly into a depth of 
a thousand fathoms, and that young bull, as soon as he 
felt the goad, inverted his body and plunged for the 
depths at a most terrific pace. The men in the boat 
above, realising too late that their victim was of the 
wrong sex and, moreover, was in the wrong place for 
them, just held themselves clear of the hissing line, 
which in two minutes had run out the whole length of 
its three hundred fathoms and disappeared with a snap 
like a stockman’s whip. 

The youngster, galled unbearably, and unable to 
tell what had happened to him, went at top speed as 
deep as a whale may, that is, to about five hundred 
fathoms, then essayed to rise to the surface once more. 


56 The Humpback Whale 


But spent with his tremendous downward rush, and 
held down by the great weight of the rope he was 
dragging against the water, his struggles became fainter 
and feebler, until at last, with a sudden collapse of his 
great heart, his struggles ceased, and turning over 
he slowly sank, already the prey of innumerable sea- 
scavengers, attracted to the spot by their infallible 
instinct warning them of the presence of their par- 
ticular form of food. So died this promising young 
bull needlessly, since he could not by any possibility 
have been caught in those deep waters, and should 
never have been attacked. 

But perhaps it is wrong of me to give these two sad 
misfortunes forward first, as if they were typical ot the 
daily life of the Humpback. Nothing could well be 
more untrue than such a suggestion. There be few 
creatures in earth, air, or sea, that lead a happier life, 
or enjoy it with a greater zest than the Humpback. 
In the pleasant waters where they roam, that is to say, 
practically all round the world between 20° N. and 
40° S., wherever there is sea to swim in there is almost 
always abundant food. They are not so restricted either 
in their dietary as their cousins, the right whales. Quite 
sizeable fish, and cuttles of all kinds up to eight or ten 
pounds in weight, form their staple support. They are 
fond, too, of showing their joy in life, like the porpoise. 
They indulge in titanic gambols which fill the spectator 
with amazement, as he watches them roll and leap and 
prance about the sea-surface as if they only weighed 
as many ounces as they do tons. There are few more 
interesting and pretty sights than to watch a family 
of Humpbacks, bull, cows, and calves, all engaged in 
their play, the great leader vying with his youngest 
consort or her tiny calf in his efforts to show by his 
sportiveness how very happy he is. 


: 
; 
| 
. 
| 


The Drawbacks of Ease 57 


True, their enemies, which are practically the same 
as those of the right whale, do occasionally overtake 
and destroy them; but unlike their gigantic cousins, 
they have great speed and agility, and consequently 
are far better able to defend themselves, to do so, in 


| " fact, most successfully in numbers of cases. Like the 


right whales, too, like all whales, in fact, they are 


_ grievously afflicted by many parasites, and it has even 


been suggested that their almost frantic gambols are 


ae indulged in in the hope of ridding their skins of these 


irritating hangers-on. But that I donot believe. When 
) the Humpback finds his load of barnacles, limpets, 
and slimy sea-grass unbearable, he hies him to the 
nearest rocky bottom of coral reef, and there drags his 
vast body slowly to and fro over the spiky surface, 


| _ chafing off a great number of his unwelcome guests and 


no doubt experiencing many a delicious thrill from that 
superlative scratching while doing so. 

In one particular, however, he is handicapped in 
getting rid of his parasites. His belly blubber is 
divided into longitudinal folds, or ruge, lying closely 
and tightly together, and with a depth in these grooves 
of over acouple of inches. Limpets breed in these snug 
places, and there, secure from dislodgment, since the 
folds cling so tightly together that the hand can hardly 
be forced between them, they reach a size unknown 
elsewhere. I have repeatedly seen limpets as large as 
a horse’s hoof in the rugosities of a Humpback’s belly. 
But these, after all, are minor evils, not for one moment 
to be weighed against the many joys of the Humpback’s 
life. Amiable, fondest of parents, content to play 
about the beautiful shores of the most beautiful islands 
in the world, and immune from the attack of man 
everywhere, except among the shallow reefs, when 
the mothers seek them for protection. Even that 


58 The Humpback Whale 


danger is now almost non-existent, for reasons given 
before. 

So that the joyous Humpback is practically free 
to enjoy his life, to eat and love and play in the vastest 
playground given by God. Even those ills to which he 
is inevitably subject trouble him not at all beforehand ; 
like the rest of the humbler creation, although he knows 
fear, he knows not anticipation. For him the immedi- 
ate present is his all, whether it be of pain or pleasure ; 
and it is pleasant to remember that his pleasures out- 
number his pains by at least a thousand to one. In 
concluding this brief sketch of the Humpback’s life, 
I would explain that where any apparently essential 
details are omitted, it may be understood that they 
are substantially the same for the Humpback as for the 
right whale, previously described; the important 
differences of habit have, I think, all been — dealt 
with. 


hi: CHAPTER V 
THE RORQUALS 


JCHIS enormous class of whales, embracing many 
| varieties, is often held by whalemen to include all 

- whales that are unfit for merchant’s purposes by 
‘reason of their scantiness of blubber or overcoating of 
- fat, the absence of marketable baleen or whalebone, 

~ and lastly their exceeding speed and agility, rendering 
_ them practically uncatchable. This distinction has the 
merit of being entirely unscientific, yet near enough to 
the truth to be easily understanded of the people to 
_ whom the cumbrously minute, yet entirely necessary, 
definitions of science are so repugnant. 

The study of whales, or cetology, is a most fas- 
inating one, as indeed, I think, is all study dealing 
with the fauna of the deep sea, but in the very nature 

of the things is so difficult to attain to any degree of 
accuracy in, that it is simply pedantic, in writing on it 
for popular reading, to speak in terms of an exact 
knowledge concerning a creature of whom we can 
only see passing glimpses during life, and who when 
dead becomes corrupt so quickly, and to so great an 
extent, that he is an intolerable and_pestilential 
nuisance at once. 

In the three great classes of which I have already 
spoken, there is some approach on the part of those 
who have hunted them, like myself, to actual know- 
ledge of their mode of life, their habits and customs ; 


60 The Rorquals 


but in the Rorquals this advantage disappears almost — 
entirely. For, except in certain places and under | 
certain conditions, such as obtained on the coasts of — 
Newfoundland, Labrador, and Norway, the Rorqual 
is not, cannot be, hunted successfully. And so there — 
are proportionately less opportunities for observing 
these clippers of the whale tribe, which are to be found 
in some of their varieties in every sea beneath the sky. 
Nevertheless, owing to the fact that instinct has taught 
the Rorqual that he has nothing to fear from ships, 
it is possible occasionally for a patient observer on 
board a sailing ship to have a fairly long opportunity 
of noting the behaviour of Rorquals. 

One thing is exceedingly noticeable about them, 
their solitary proclivities. During my wanderings — 
over all the seas, I have never seen more than two 
Rorquals together, and that on only three occasions. 
Nearly always it is one that comes from out of the 
great void, and, as if feeling his loneliness, makes friends 
with the becalmed ship and remains constantly atten- 
dant upon her, until an upspringing breeze hurries her 
away. I well remember the awe and fascination that 
one of these monsters bred in me during my first East 
Indian voyage. It was in the Indian Ocean, near the 
Equator, and on one lovely but moonless night I was 
lolling over the rail during a stark calm, gazing into 
the inscrutable depths below, where occasional flashes 
of green light made the surrounding darkness more 
impressive. Dimly I wondered what those lights were, 
and why they shone, when presently I became aware 
of a great glare far down, which was slowly brightening 
as it neared the surface. As it rose higher and higher 
I saw that the centre of this brilliancy was a long black 
oval growing larger and larger. And presently, 
paralysing me with fright, the rising mass broke the 


A Mighty Visitor 61 


surface, there was a sound like a million sighs rolled 
_ into one, and a column of vapour rose in ghostly fashion 
- against the deep violet of the sky. Then, though my 
heart still thumped violently, I recognised a whale 
and was somewhat comforted. 

Still I had my doubts of his intentions ; he was far 
too near, about four feet from our side, to be pleasant 
company. What if he should suddenly object to our 
presence there and assault us furiously? And I 
thought, with the cold fear curdling my young blood, 
of the awful depths beneath us, separated from us 
only by two or three inches of soft pine plank. I did 
not know then how sociable and good-natured is the 
‘Finback,’ one of the best known of the great Rorqual 
family, one also who, like the sperm whale, but with 
even a greater range, may be found in nearly all the 
navigable seas of the world. For some few minutes 
after rising he lay leisurely by the ship’s side appar- 
ently considering her appearance and occasionally 
spouting softly. ‘Then he slowly settled down, and 
presently the whole ship vibrated as if grating over 
rocks, but with far less violence. And peering over 
one side from the main yard-arm I saw the halo round 
our visitor glowing beneath our keel, and realised that 
he was rubbing himself against us, as cattle rub against 
a fence. The calm lasted with brief intervals of light 
airs from all quarters for four days, during the whole 
of which our visitor never left us. Fasting too, as far 
as we could see, although it is hardly safe to say that 
nothing entered that capacious throat of his, because 
we could not see it. But we had splendid opportunity 
for observing his every movement, the exercise of all 
his powers, as closely as if he had been cased in an 
aquarium and we just standing peering through the 
glass. 


62 _ The Rorquals. 


Many times since I have had opportunities of © 
watching, not only the Finback, but other Rorquals 
in all parts of the world from this well-known habit — 
of theirs of consorting with becalmed vessels, but never — 
better than on that early and well-remembered occa- — 
sion. Yet, strange to say, I have never seen a Rorqual — 
calf, nor have I ever met a whaleman who has. Whether — 
some deep maternal instinct. warns the Rorqual cow — 
that at such a time she cannot exercise her normal 
powers of flight in case of aggression, or what it is, I 
do not know. But I believe that she does have an 
instinctive desire to hide herself during the ting of 
nursing, and succeeds in so doing. : 

Fortunately for the Rorquals they are far ies 
valuable commercially than any other whale. . Their — 
blubber is very thin, their baleen very scanty, andas — 
I have before noted, their strength and agility are such. 
that, except under such conditions as obtain in the — 
fishery of the places I have mentioned, it is almost © 
impossible to kill and secure them. I couple the two — 
terms because the Rorquals almost invariably sink as — 
soon as dead, and in deep water such a habit is fatal — 
to any chance of securing them. A sinking whale — 
cannot be stopped from doing so by any means known — 
or available to whale-fishers. Not only have they 
these commercial drawbacks, but living advantages, — 
for the resultant oil is exceedingly poor in quality and — 
low in price. 

Yet the thrifty, hard-bitten Norwegians, able to 
wrench a living from their iron-bound shores where 
men of lesser endurance, strength, and perseverance 
must inevitably starve, have devised a way of capturing — 
and making commercial use of the Rorqual. It is © 
brutal and utterly unsportsmanlike, but one cannot 
consider the claims of sport where hungry mouths are 


Whaling for Bread 63 


_ clamouring for bread. Briefly, small steamers, like 
the ‘jackal’ tug-boats of the Thames, of full power 
_ and good sea-endurance, are fitted out. In the bows 
_ they carry a cannon designed to fire a massive harpoon 
instead of a shot or shell. To the harpoon is attached 


a stout rope, far stouter than ordinary whale-line, 


which is one and a half inches in girth. A powerful 
steam windlass is fitted in the bows also. When the 
signal comes from the watchers on the hills that whales 
are near, the steamer slips her moorings, where she has 


_ been lying with banked fires, and puts out to sea, 


guided by certain flag directions from the headland 
where the look-out is stationed. Presently coming 
up with the whale, who is quietly gulping down a 
multitude of cod and other succulent dainties of a 
fishy nature, the gun is fired, the great harpoon buries 
itself in the quivering body of the monster, sometimes 
indeed with a small bomb in its head. He plunges 
seaward, dragging the steamer after him and severely 
testing the value of harpoon and line. But, as a rule, 
with scarcely any exception, once the harpoon has 
found its mark the fate of that Rorqual is sealed. The 
wound is so deep, the strain-is so great, that in a short 
time he succumbs and sinks dead. 

The water is not very deep, so, although he must 
needs be allowed to sink while he is sinking, he is no 
sooner at the bottom than the windlass is started and 
the great body begins to rise again. As soon as it is 
at the surface, measures are taken to secure it by the 
head for towing, and off goes the steamer harbourwards, 
dragging her giant quarry. Arriving at her station, 
_ the huge carcase is handed over to eager butchers and 
- boilers, who not only strip off the blubber, rip out the 
scanty baleen, and tear every vestige of fat from within 
to swell the tale of oil barrels, but even chop up the 


64 The Rorquals 


bones and stack them after boiling for transportation 
as manure. The living thus gained is precarious and 
poor, subject to frightful perils and no recognition, 
but it is not quite so bad as the similar industry carried — 
on across the Atlantic, by the tremendously handi- 
capped citizens of Newfoundland and Labrador. 
However, enough of this fishery, which I have only 
briefly alluded to, to show the one way in which the 
Rorqual is molested by man. 

One species of Rorqual (Balaenoptera sibbaldit sul- 
phureous) has the distinction of being the longest of all 
species of whale. The whalemen call it the ‘Sulphur 
Bottom,’ all the underpart of the body being of a bright 
yellow. It is a harmless, amiable monster, following 
the usual custom among giants, notable as being always 
more docile than lesser folk. But its terrific capa- 
bilities in the way of speed cause it to be left severely 
alone by whale fishers, and consequently it is fairly 
plentiful and attains its extraordinary length of 
sometimes one hundred and fifty feet. It has another 
peculiarity differentiating it from all other whales—the 
height of its spout. Optical illusion and the angle of 
vision may possibly vitiate my statement, but I feel 
sure I have seen a Sulphur Bottom spout as high as 
our main yard, forty feet. These are the free lances 
of the sea. None molest them ; even from the spiteful 
attack of the grampus or Orca they are free—no Orca 
would dare attempt an attack upon so swift an animal. 

But the chief characteristic of these great sea- — 
mammals (the Rorquals generally) is their omnivorous- 
ness with regard to fish. As long as they confine their 
attentions to such wonderful deep-water nurseries of 
edible fish for man as the Newfoundland Banks, the 
Agulhas Banks (off the Cape of Good Hope) and the 
Rockall Bank, fishermen only feel slightly aggrieved. 


' 
: 


The All-Devouring Rorqual 65 


They know that the harvest of the sea is so abundant, 
so entirely fitted for all the varied needs of its popu- 
lation, that the surplus which man may dip into 
without any fear of diminishing the supply by one 
scale is always there, that no danger of exhaustion is 
ever likely to arise at sea, whatever may be the case 
ashore. Yet their complacency receives a severe shock 
when Rorquals are found haunting the Channel of Old 
England, and th» Irish and North Seas during the 
herring and mackerel seasons, relays of fish-devouring 
giants whose appetite is insatiable, whose digestion is 
that of a flour mill. Then do the fishermen wail. Is 
it to be wondered at ? 

Patrolling with perfect ease those prolific coasts, the 
Rorqual calmly swims through thousands of pounds’ 
worth of nets, shovelling down into his vast maw boat- 
loads of herrings or mackerel at each gulp. The 
gossamer of the nets he does not heed, they do not 
even annoy him, so slight and trivial are they. So, his 
appetite growing by what it feeds upon, this mighty 
denizen of the deep sea comfortably wallows in the 
shallows near our shores, feeding, ever feeding, upon 
the countless myriads of fish which should have been 
awaiting the fishermen, but are, by reason of this awful 
visitation among them, driven into deeper waters and 
smaller companies to avoid him. Meanwhile he, the 
subject of our interest, enjoys himself, all unknowing 
and unheeding of the maledictions of the fishermen 
and the panic of the fish, devouring continually, always 
hungry and always eating, until change of season sends 
the herring or mackerel to sea again, and he must needs 
follow or pursue some new line of food-procuring ; they 
are all well known to this deep-sea denizen. 

It would be a comparatively easy task, but I feel 
one that would not be received with any enthusiasm, 


5 


66. The Rorquals 


to prolong this section almost indefinitely, for really : 
there are so many kinds of whales, each with well-_ 
defined peculiarities, and methods of living that are 
interesting to note, that a very big book might be ~ 
written about them alone. 4 
But I have to remember that there are very many 
other deep-sea people claiming notice, and consequently ~ 
must be as brief as I can in dealing with those I have — 
left to the tail of this Rorqual section. The smaller 
Rorquals, such as the Bottle Nose (how is it, I wonder, — 
that so many landsmen seem to have a nodding ac-— 
quaintance with the Bottle Nose Whale? Perhaps 
because captains generally, upon a whale being sighted, — 
and a passenger asking its name, usually reply non-— 
chalantly, ‘Oh, that’s a Bottle Nose’), the curious 
Beluga or white whale which furnishes our ‘porpoise ’ 
hide boots and boot-laces, the ca-aing whale, the 
porpoises, the dolphins (Delphinidae), each and every 
one of these has a family history of its own, very 1 
interesting to read; but one may have too much of 
cetology, if so undignified a chat as mine about them ~ 
can be dignified by so stately a title. Therefore I 
will only make a few references to some of the smaller 
whales by way of amends to them for devoting so much — 
time to their gigantic relatives, before passing on to. 
another great division of the population of the sea. 
Who that has ever been a sea passage, however 
short, and kept his eyes open to his surroundings, has 
not seen a Dolphin, or more likely many of these 
interesting little whales, which in some branch of their 
enormous family have the widest sea range of any of - 
the cetacea? And not only sea-range, but in spite 
of the fact that they are true denizens of salt water, — 
are continually found far inland preying upon the finny — 
population of rivers, and in a few cases presenting us_ 


The ‘Happy’ Whales 67 


with the only vegetarian examples that we have among 
the sea-folk except some turtles and that strange 
monster the sea-cow. But few people outside the ranks 
_ of scientific naturalists have any idea of the great 
number of varieties there areamong the Dolphin. It is 
probable that in their zeal for minute classifications, 
naturalists have named many as distinct species which 
were really the same but having slight variations in 
form, colour. or even structure, due merely to Nature’s 
abhorrence to turn out two exact copies of the same 
creature. 

When due allowance is made for this, however, it 
remains certain that there are at least forty different 
species of Dolphin, subdivided from nineteen genera, 
ranging from the Orca, or grampus, of twenty feet long 
down to the little porpoises of the Eastern seas, with 
a maximum length of four feet, and rejoicing in a 
scientific designation of extraordinary proportions. 
Most of them, however, are known to seafarers by the 
generic name of Porpoises, with the certain exceptions 
of the killers, the white whales (Beluga), narwhals, and 
Black Fish. For the seafarer has a curious rooted 
exception to calling what he considers a Porpoise a 
Dolphin, many generations of use having fastened 
the latter name upon the beautiful Coryphena, of 
whom much by-and-by. 

These diminutive whales are decidedly of intense 
interest to naturalists, as it is possible to keep them 
in captivity and study their habits. Moreover, in a 
slow-going ship one may spend many a pleasant hour 
watching them as they gambol about the bows keeping 
_ her strict company. Their motions are probably more 
_ graceful than that of any living thing, while their 
activity is astounding. No other creature would seem 
to have so much superabundant vitality to throw off 


68 The Rorquals 


or to be so filled to overflowing with the sheer delight 
of living. Rest seems impossible to them, and there- 
fore, while a swift steamer of say fourteen to sixteen 
knots will soon lose their company, a vessel going only 
four or five will not keep it long, the one because it 
is impossible for them to continue playing their pranks 
around and about her at that speed for more than a 
few minutes, the other because she does not permit 
them to get as much exercise as they need. A speed 
of six to ten knots suits them very well, and I know 
of few prettier sights than, when going at that speed 
on a clear moonless night, is afforded by a troop of 
these agile cetacea gambolling under the bows in mazy 
whirls of glowing green light, or spreading out fan-wise 
in broad bands of lambent flame as they rush towards 
the horizon and in a minute or two converge upon 
the ship again like a series of blazing torpedoes bent 
upon her destruction. 

They seem, more perhaps than any other of the 
sea-folk, to have a wonderful prescience as to the 
weather. This peculiarity is noticed in Shakespeare 
(Pericles, Act ii., Scene 1). 

3rd Fisherman: ‘ Nay, master, said I not as much, 
when I saw the Porpus how he bounced and tumbled ? 
They say they are half-fish, half-flesh; a plague on 
them! they ne’er come but I look to be washed.’ 

All seamen realise that the abnormal activity of a 
creature always extraordinarily active presages a storm ; 
indeed, it would be impossible to pass the matter 
without notice. To see a school of Porpoises some 
thousands strong rushing at amazing speed across 
the foaming sea with a roar like that of billows breaking 
upon a reef during a landward gale, and to notice that, 
even in that mad and apparently objectless race, in- 
dividuals are here and there hurling their quivering 


| 
. 


Amenities of Porpoise Life 69 


a bodies twenty feet into the air, as if it were impossible 


for them to be violent enough in their exercise, is to 
feel, no matter how dull one may be, that something 
out of the common must be going to happen. The 
theory of some great enemy being in pursuit is un- 
tenable, for these stupendous stampedes are always 
succeeded after a few minutes by a like period of steady 
_ easy-going, except that here and there some excited 
__ member of the family will be seen indulging in a solitary 
leap orso. Then there will be another race, and so on. 

Life is pleasant for the Dolphin in all his varieties. 
The amazing fecundity of the sea supplies abundant 
food—fish of many sorts and the smaller cuttle-fish 
being obtainable in vast numbers wherever the Dolphin 
frequent, from Antarctica to Jan Mayen. Enemies 
they have, of course; as we descend the scale of size 
we find the struggle of life grows fiercer, but they are 
far better off than the Mysticetae. For their vicious 
relative the grampus must put on top speed to catch 
them, as must also the sword-fish, except in the case of 
cow porpoises with young. Like the humpbacks and 
Rorquals generally, they are devoted parents, taking 
the utmost care of their young, and defending them at 
cost of their own lives. The young are very docile— 
many times it has been only by the closest observation 
that I have detected the tiny calf, looking not much 
_ bigger than a large trout, apparently glued on to the 

side of its mother, so closely did it follow her every 
movement, however rapid and erratic. 

One habit obtains among the smaller Dolphins 
which is not practised by any other of the cetacea. It 
is the cannibalistic one of immediately tearing in pieces 
and devouring any one of their number which happens 
to get wounded. Many a time have I seen one slip off 
the harpoon, with a great rent in his side from which 


70 The Rorquals 


the blood was spirting in jets. Immediately the whole — 
school would close in upon him, rending him with their | 
keenly armed jaws until in a few moments there was — 
no trace of him to be seen; the disrobed skeleton had — 
sunk, to be finally polished by the minute scavengers — 
of the sea ere its deposit on the silent mysterious floor — 
of the ocean. 

They are of little value commercially, owing to the — 
small amount of blubber they carry, although there is — 
a legend among whalemen of the oil from the Porpoise’s — 
jaw being worth a guinea an ounce for watchmakers’ — 
use. But I do not know how far this is justified—I 
should say it was just a yarn. They used to be valued — 
as food, but now I do not think anybody but sailors 
would eat them, and sailors only in the absence of 
anything more palatable. Their flesh is like very dark, — 
fine-grained beef with a strong flavour of fish. 7 

The strangest member of the Dolphin family is — 
undoubtedly the Narwhal, that curious cetacean which ~ 
has one or two teeth so abnormally developed that they 
have been utilised for bedposts ; most people have seen — 
pictures of this bizarre-looking whale, with the long — 
twisted yellow horn of ivory sticking straight out from 
his nose. There is very good reason to suppose that — 
the idea of the unicorn as shown in our royal arms may ~ 
have been taken from this extraordinary Dolphin; — 
much more reasonable one would think than that it © 
should have been taken from the ungainly rhinoceros. 
It is restricted in its habitat to the Arctic regions, and — 
is supposed by a great many of the natives to be the — 
male of the Beluga, or white whale, a supposition which — 
is worthy of some credit, owing to the similarity of — 
structure, other than the horn, between them. Only 
the Beluga does not confine itself to feeding in the sea, 
but on the Alaskan coast pursues the salmon far up — 


Tho. CaPprerne = 


HARPOONING BLACKFISH. 7 
[See p. 71- 


a ae 


The Confiding ‘Black Fish’ 71 


_ the rivers, a feat which the Narwhal has never been 
known to perform. He contents himself with groping in 
the muddy or sandy bottoms of shallow Arctic waters, 
stirring up sluggish fish, and transfixing them with his 
horn prior to pushing them off and swallowing them. 
This may sound fantastic, far-fetched ; yet it was the 
opinion of so good a man and close observer as Captain 
William Scoresby ; and after all it is precisely what the 
sword-fish does, on the evidence of many observers, 
myself among the number. And what the sword-fish 
does I am sure the Narwhal can do, being quite as agile 
and certainly more intelligent. 

The Black Fish (Globicephalus) is a miniature sperm 
whale to all appearance, having a huge square head, 
and much spermaceti in it. It feeds in the same 
regions as does the cachalot, but sometimes in enormous 
numbers. It is one of the largest of the Dolphins, for 
I have seen individuals weighing over six tons, and 
yielding three to four barrels of excellent oil. While 
not nearly so sociable as the Porpoise, using the word in 
its sailor sense, it is a confiding beast, permitting a boat 
to approach closely enough to harpoon it without 
manifesting afly alarm. And when one of the school is 
harpooned the other boats may pull up and harpoon as 
many as they list, for an insatiable curiosity seems to 
seize upon all the family to see whatever had befallen 
their friends. I have often seen as many as a dozen 
of these bulky creatures secured by four boats at one 
lowering, and the utmost difficulty experienced in 
getting through the assembled crowd of survivors, 
which, however, made no attempt to avenge their slain 
comrades. 

Like the rest of the dolphins, the Black Fish appears 
to be very happy. Since the decline of the whale 
fishery to its present exceedingly low ebb it would seem 


72 The Rorquals 


as if the worst of his enemies are removed, for he is too — 
agile to be caught, and too large to be gobbled up if — 
caught, by his fierce cousin the Orca. If one could — 
judge of the mental condition of animals by their facial 
expression, it would be quite natural to suppose that — 
the Black Fish was a creature of sunny disposition and 
one whose lines had fallen in pleasant places, for he has — 
an innocent smiling expression, owing to the peculiar — 
shape of the mouth and the profile that is almost ludi- — 
crous to see. But I confess that when first I saw it I — 
did not think it ludicrous, I rather felt that it was a 
shame that such a jolly-looking animal should be chased ~ 4 
and killed for the sake of getting a few gallons of oil out e 
of him. i 


CHAPTER VI 
SIRENIA 


T seems meet to close these observations on whales 
generally by a few remarks upon what is really the 
connecting link between the whales and the seals, 

between those mammals who spend all their time in the 
water—cannot live out of it—and those who, while 
living entirely on the produce of the sea and perfectly 
at home there, can yet make shift to live ashore for a 
while, settle their love affairs there, and produce their 
families. Such a link is found in the strange creature 
called trivially the Sea Cow, but scientifically the 
Manatee and Halicore. They are both riverine and 
coastal mammals, feeding upon algae at the bottom, 
perfectly harmless and almost helpless creatures, almost 
unable, in spite of their great size, to keep from be- 
coming extinct. In fact, one species (Rhytina), once 
plentiful on the shores of Behring Straits, has become 
extinct—its enemies had little difficulty= removing it 
from the list of extant animals. 

Most readers of Kipling’s fascinating sea idyll, The 
White Seal, will remember Kotick’s meeting with Sea 
Cow, and his following them to the wonderful beaches 
where man never came. Like all the work of this great 
’ writer, his description of the Dugong and Halicore is 
marked by scientific accuracy, and points out clearly 
the remarkable structure of this connecting link 


73 


74 Sirenia 


between land and sea animals. In every way they are 
a compromise ; but a study of them is of the utmost 
value as showing how the transition from land to sea 
of all the whales took place. A careful examination 
of them shows various characteristics almost identical 
with those of seals, such as nostril-shaped blowholes, — 
large, expressive eyes, and whiskers on the muzzle, 
while scattered about the body are many bristly hairs, 4 
evidently a survival of the hairy covering of a land % 
animal being replaced as the sea-life is taken to bys 
coating of blubber beneath the skin. 4 

But the grand peculiarity about the Sirenia is their — 
vegetarianism. Some of the Delphinidae do eat algae, 
those, that is, whose habitat is some great river like the — 
Amazon or Ganges, but even with them it is certain that — 
they are not exclusively vegetarian, from the contents 
of their stomachs, and there is even a doubt in some 
minds whether the presence of vegetable matter in 
their stomachs is not a matter of accident rather than — 
preference. But the Manatee and Halicore are, un-— 
doubtedly, exclusively vegetable-feeders, which at once 4 
places them upon a plane apart from all their fellows — 
in a rigidly carnivorous community. Is it any wonder 
that one species (RAytina) has become extinct ? They 
are too gentle for their stern world; as much out of 
place in it as a herd of antelopes in a jumgle peopled with 
tigers. d 
The first sight of the Dugong as it lifts its queer heal , 
above the surface is startling. Although upon a close — 
examination it would be impossible to trace any resem- 
blance whatever to the human form divine, yet, from 
the pose of the head and remembering the suddenness — 
with which it pops up, perhaps on a brilliantly moonlit” 
night, one can find some excuse for its scientific generic | 
name, Sivenia, some justification for the old seafarers 4 


The Faithful Sirenia 75 


_ who, from its appearance, wove their fabulae concerning 
_mermen and mermaids. Only, like all the whales, not 
even excepting the Beluga, it has no voice. Any sound 
_ it makes, or any whale makes, is due to the rushing of 


the air through the spiracle or spouthole, and not to any 
laryngeal exercise. The Manatee and Dugong, more- 
over, have an aditional claim upon our notice, and a 
proof of their close connexion with the higher land 


intelligence, in that they have been tamed. 


The late lamented superintendent of the London 
Zoological Gardens once trained, or, rather, took over 
the training, of a young Manatee in Surinam, which 
would come to him as he waded into its pond and permit 
him to hold it in his knees while he gave it suck from a 
feeding-bottle. And there is a record of one of these 
strange anomalies being kept as a pet by a Spanish 
South American governor for twenty-six years, during 
which it behaved itself quite as sensibly as any ex- 
clusively land animal could have done, even to the 
extent of allowing the boys of the household to ride it 
round its lake. 

After this, it is not surprising to learn that its 
fondness for its young is as strong as that possessed by 
any of the cetacea, not excepting the humpback, 
although its power of defending its offspring is exceed- 
ingly limited, for the Manatee has a tail like a beaver 
and not at all like a whale, which member, though 
useful enough to swim with, is of scarcely any value as 
a weapon. 

Another marked feature of this strange animal’s 
life is its conjugal love. It has one mate, to which it 


. faithfully clings, nor will it leave its spouse even under 


the extremest pressure of fear, preferring death to 


_ separation. Thereby it is at once lifted on to a plane 


in our estimation far above that of any other sea- 


76 ‘ioe’ Strenia:3 


mammal or amphibious creature, all of which he ‘ 
very elastic habits as regards their connubial ass 
tions. I leave the Sivenia with regret as being at se 
one of the most interesting and one of the stranges: 
all the denizens of the Deep Sea. _ 


CHAPTER VII 


THE WALRUS, MORSE, OR SEA-HORSE 


ROM the Sirenia to the Walrus is one of the easiest 
} steps, for Sea Vitch, as Kipling calls the latter, is 
ugly and uncouth enough to be one of the very same 
family as the dugong, although in truth he is nothing 
of the sort. But at the outset I feel impelled to enter 
a stern protest against the gross libel upon that beauti- 
ful animal the horse, perpetrated by calling the Walrus 
a sea-horse and the hippopotamus a river-horse. What, 
in the name of common-sense, have either of these most 
ungainly brutes in common with one of the most elegant 
and beautiful of all known animals ? Not that I would 
rashly call any of the Creator’s wonderful designs ugly 
—I do but speak after the manner of men. But there 
does appear to me to be such an utter lack of apprecia- 
tion of similarity in the conferring of titles like the 
foregoing. Nor is the manatee any more like a cow; 
still, there is not quite the same jar to our sensibilities 
in the comparison, since the cow is not what one would 
truthfully describe as graceful, either in outline or 
movement. 
Perhaps of all land-walking animals, not even the 
Myrmecophagus, none can compete with the Walrus 


for clumsiness. He has a gigantic body—in the fullest- 


grown adult about a ton in weight—and about as 
unsymmetrical as a leathern bag of oil or the body of a 
hippopotamus. It is covered with a tough gnarled 


77 


78 The Walrus, Morse, or Sea-Horse | 


hide, scantily clothed with coarse brown hair, very 
patchy, in fact not at all unlike one of those old hair 
trunks we used to see occasionally. The fore flippers 
are very short, and the hand-like members are planted — 
flat at almost tight angles to the body, while the hind — 
flippers have no legs to them, being apparently just 
an ornamental appendage to the body in lieu of a tail. 
Consequently he who can watch the progress of a 
Walrus over land or ice and not laugh must be quite ; 
devoid of humour or any sense thereof, for it is certainly - 
one of the most droll-looking methods of progressitiig 4 
conceivable. 

But, as Dr. Johnson is reported to have said of the 
dancing dog, the wonder is not that he should perform — 
so strangely, but that he should perform at all. For — 
the body in an adult will weigh about a ton, and the ~ 
road over which the creature ordinarily travels is one 
of the most rugged or slippery imaginable : a fioe with — 
a surface like a mirror, or a mass of rough hummocks ~ 
where the ice has been broken up by the sea, and, coming — 
together again, has conglomerated and congealed in the 
most fantastic shapes. At the upper extremity of this — 
oblong mass of flesh is the head, ludicrously small as © 
compared with the body. It looks almost as if the 
body had suddenly tapered to a slightly elongated - 
point. And where one naturally looks for the brain, — 
at the top of the skull, there is apparently no room for — 
one, only a flat solid-looking mass of bone. The skull, 
however, is abnormally powerful, as it need be, for — 
depending from it at right angles are the characteristic 
tusks, like a pair of pickaxes. With these the Walrus, — 
suddenly rising from the bottom, hooks on to an ice-floe, 
and with an almost incredible exhibition of strength 
hauls himself up out of the water and into the berth he q 
has selected for his sun-bath or doze. With the same 


The Gentle Walrus 79 


tusks, too, he digs in the sea-bed for his food, which is 


principally shell-fish, although he does not disdain the 
offal of a dead whale, or indeed anything else of an 
animal nature, so long as it does not involve the chase 
of the object. 

Pursuit is not at all in the programme of the Walrus, 
except under certain circumstances to be alluded to 
presently. The stomach of a Walrus that I once 
examined (caught on a floe in Behring Straits) looked 
like the contents of an oyster-dredge just hauled up. 
Curious shellfish of many kinds and in several cases 
alive ; stones, sand, mud, shrimps, worms, and other 
things ; it was a queer collection. Yet it seemed—if 
such was his regular diet, and I have no reason to 
suppose that it was not—to have suited the Walrus 
very well indeed, for he was so fat that out of his 
wounds exuded almost as much oil as blood. 

As might be supposed from the nature of its food, 
the Walrus is a gentle and inoffensive creature. Here, 
again, a sense of extreme incongruity is aroused in one 
at the sight of a Morse suddenly popping up from under 
the sea. Its appearance is savage in the extreme; no 
painted Indian ever succeeded in making himself look 
more terror-striking than the Walrus, and his bristling 
whiskers, each hair almost as thick as a porcupine quill 
and completely hiding the setting of the tusks, serves 
excellently to heighten his appearance of ferocity. 
Yet, generally speaking, at the sight of man he will 
flee as fast as he can, with every appearance of earnest 
desire to get away. The exceptions to this rule are 
found during the breeding season, among both males 


_ and females, the former in defence of the latter, and the 
latter in defence of their young. And as they are very 


sociable. creatures, loving to herd in hundreds, an at- 
tacking boat suddenly finds itself surrounded by a 


80 The Walrus, Morse, or on : 


herd of infuriated Walrus, each armed with ss 
midable weapons before noted. ig 
Contrary to the expectation aroused by its app di 
ance, the Walrus has a large and fully-developed brait 
although it is not especially notable for intelligence 
But then the study of the brain is so far from being w 
advanced that we do not yet know why the elephan 
with its comparatively insignificant brain should b 
so much more intelligent than the ox, one-eighth of tl 
elephant’s bulk and with a brain almost as large. O 
why the sperm whale should be so intelligent, with 
brain about the same size as the ox and a body one 
hundred times larger. Perhaps in the latter instance 
there is a distribution of brain at points along the sp na a 
column, so that messages from outlying parts of ft 
body should not have so far to travel. I do not here 
try to be funny but only state what has been seriot ash 
suggested by naturalists. a 
In one respect, at any rate, the Walrus is the equ 
of any of the higher intelligences. That is in 
parental quality. No animal cares for its offspri 
so long or more lovingly. No animal will wi <a 
undergo more suffering and privation for the ae : 
its young. There can be no doubt that the fem: 
Walrus suckles its young, and provides other food f 
it as well during the latter part of the period, for ty ; 
years. This has been, I think, abundantly provec 
by observation, and, moreover, the great canine te , : 
which develop into the formidable tusks characteristi 
of this animal, and without which it is impossible fa 
it to live, do not show more than an inch or two unt 
it is two years old. But the mother never seems t 
weary of her huge burden, the baby, if it be a mal 
often reaching its mother’s proportions before it is 
weaned. With infinite, devoted patience she care 


7 47 ata VY CVE 


THE.HAUNTS OF THE WALRUS. 
(To face p. 80. 


‘ 


“Ad 
] 


Defence, not Defiance 81 


for it, watches over it, defends it with her own body, 
and, one is tempted to say, loves her burden so much 


that. she is grieved when she must lay it down. 
However that may be, it is certain that the Walrus 
for all their uncouth appearance, and extraordinary 
method of living (so totally different from all other 
sea mammals whatever), enjoy their lives to the full 
in the best sense of the term. In one respect, indeed, 
they are extremely fortunate: with the exception of 
man, they have no enemies. The great Polar bear 


does not lightly engage in a combat with ‘ Awuk,’ 
since he knows that in those formidable tusks he has 


opposing weapons that are quite a match for even his 
tremendous claws and teeth, while the hide of the 
Walrus is so tough and thick as to be almost impene- 
trable to even the onslaught of the great white terror 
of the Arctic seas. Consequently, the Walrus lives 


a fairly peaceful life among his fellows. He does not 


prey upon them, and Nature has so equipped him that 
they cannot prey upon him. 

But man has wrought terrible havoc among the 
Walrus. Even as far back as 1327, it is recorded in a 
receipt preserved at Bergen that the Greenlanders 
paid their tribute to the Crusades in Walrus tusks. 
And all along the Labrador coast as well as the Gulf 
of St. Lawrence, where a Walrus now would be almost 
as great a curiosity as a seal on the English coasts, 
they were a century ago so numerous that hundreds 
were slaughtered in a day. Various causes have, 
however, reduced the hunting of the Walrus to an 
insignificant matter chiefly confined to the Eskimo, 


who are entitled fairly to the produce of their hunting, 


since they are sportsmen in the best sense of the term. 
They do not kill for the sake of killing, but for their 
very life, and the Walrus is one of their chosen objects 


6 


hl 
}. 
h 


82 The Walrus, Morse, or Sea-Horse 


of the chase for his succulence (from an Eskimo stand-_ 
point), from his lack of speed, and from his love - 
shallow waters, where he finds the humble — : 
upon which he feeds. Such gaps as the Eskimo n 

in the ranks of the Walrus will do no more than préeetil 
the natural balance necessary. If only civilicddh sina 7 
will let the Walrus alone, having found that the — ir ng , 
does not pay, there will soon be as many as ever z 
were to people, if not exactly to oe sical 
Arctic regions. a> 


i = 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE SEA ELEPHANT 


S far as size goes, this giant seal could probably give 
points to the walrus, but he is certainly not so 
ferocious-looking. Except for the curious nose 

(whence his Greek name) he is just a big black seal fairly 
agile in the sea, and clumsy ashore, like all his kind. 
Again, but for his partly-developed proboscis, he should 
be called sea hippopotamus, rather than Sea Elephant. 
He is about the bulk of a hippopotamus of the same 
age; although more hirsute and with a less extensive 
opening of the jaws. His proboscis is just an extension 
of the skin of the nose, which usually hangs down 
limply before the mouth for about a foot, and is inflated 
when the animal is enraged or excited. The young 
ones and females are destitute of this appendage— 
one cannot call it an ornament. He holds among 
seals the unique position of being common to both 
hemispheres, although from the ardour with which he 
has been hunted, very few specimens exist now north 
of the Equator. 

Like every other sea mammal which I have hitherto 
dealt with, he has now a respite, and is consequently 
increasing in numbers rapidly. He forms practically 
. the only population of many an otherwise lonely series 
of barren rocks in the Southern seas, finding in the 
inclement waters washing their bases the humble food 
he desires (for like the walrus, and for the same reason, 


83 


84 The Sea Elephant 


lack of speed and agility, he cannot feed upon swift 
moving creatures). Once they abounded in immensi 
herds upon all the islands in the Antarctic Ocean, 
notably Kerguelen’s Land and the South Shetlanc 
To those barren spots vessels repaired with crews tha 
were ready for any fate. These men were landed upor 
those awful solitudes, just bare rocks set in a roa in 
desolate sea, without a green thing to gladden the e 
and with the almost perpetual rage of the ocean en 
deavouring to daunt them. They had only the mos 
impromptu shelter, their food was of the coarsest 
intoxicating drink was unknown among them, and in 
this forlorn condition they lived for six months at 
time, without seeing other faces or hearing other voice 
than those of their own little company. In the chasé 
of the Sea Elephant, they ran terrible risks, endure 
incredible hardships, and their reward after a successtt 
voyage worked out at something like ros. per week 
Only the hide and blubber were sought, the Elephan 
Seal having no fur. | 
My own recollection of this miserable business 1 
a brief one, but quite lengthy enough to wih 
thankful that I shall never repeat the experience. 
an evil hour I engaged to proceed from New Zealan 
‘to the Auckland and Campbell Islands in search ts 
Elephants, being assured that it was not only excitil 
sport, but a very pleasant pastime. Alas, ‘for | i - 
depravity of humanity! Could anything oon 
worthy of the title of pastime than that? 
yet I am sure that, as compared with similar vo A 
upon such terrific rock-bound islets as the Sout 
Shetlands or South Georgia, it might even be ‘ 
sport or pastime. For the Auckland and Campbell 
Islands in summer have a garment of vegetation, and 
there are many flowers. There are also trees, and 


SEA-ELEPHANTS, 


[To face p. 84. 


Compulsory ‘ Sport ’ 85 


considering the high southern latitude, the place is 
almost habitable for an Anglo-Saxon in fair comfort 
But the weather is vile when the storm-fiend is abroad, 
which is about every other day. Such is the force 
with which those mighty southern waves strike these 
lonely mountain-peaks rising from the sea right in the 
track of their world-engirdling sweep, that the whole 
atmosphere is full of spray, and walking abroad, one’s 
hair and beard become encrusted with salt. Also 
much of the land-surface is bog, exceedingly dangerous 
to traverse, and, with the frequent dense fogs which 
prevail, almost impossible to avoid. 

These islands being a favourite haunt of the Sea 
Elephant, we went there in search of them, and set 
up our try-works on the promising spot. Provisions 
and materials for building huts having been landed, 
the ship sailed away; it was no place for a vessel to 
linger at anchor. Better by far face the utmost fury 
of the open sea. We watched her departure with a 
pang, for now we felt desolate indeed ; but our thoughts 
were rudely interrupted by the curt orders of our 
officers, who wanted to know if we thought we had 
come there for a picnic. So we plunged into work of 
the hardest in order to get things a bit ship-shape ; 

but before we had been toiling an hour we were all 
suddenly startled stiff by a most tremendous roaring, 
as of a troop of lions newly landed. Our hesitation 
was but momentary, for our two officers, recognising 
the sound, bade us grasp our clubs, sheath our knives, 
and follow them. We did so, and presently, coming 
across a ridge of rock into view of a little exposed bay, 
‘we saw at least a hundred of these huge seals emerging 
from the broken water and lumbering shorewards. 

We watched them with intensest interest, feeling 

grateful for the rest, and also (I speak for myself) most 


86. The Sea Elephant 


curious to know what sort of a reception these monsters 
would give us when we burst in upon them armed 
only with clubs. True, we had been told repeatedly 
that all we had to do was to smite them fiercely on the 
nose, and they would fall an inert mass at our feet 4 
when we were to cut their throats immediately. 
somehow a sight of them did not seem to inspire us" 
with much confidence in our ability to carry out these 
simple orders to the letter. They looked so awe- 
inspiring in that luminous haze. There was a 2 
drip drip of moisture from the rocks around distinct y 
audible between the long, sullen, thunderous roll ¢ 
the breakers, and the occasional hideous roaring of the 
seals, and to my excited fancy it seemed as if it weré 
the ticking of the clock of my life almost run doy | 
For natural scepticism asserted itself, and I did no ‘ 
could not, believe that our enterprise was as free from 
danger as I had been so repeatedly assured. & 

At last, after what seemed an interminable time ¢ 
waiting, during which my hand got quite glued to my 
club from the nervous energy of my grip upon it, the 
last of the mighty family slowly heaved his huge bulk 
out of the surf and waddled after the rest inland. He 
had hardly put a dozen yards between himself and the 
water-line, when, in a low, hissing voice, our chief 
said: ‘ Now, then, spread yourselves along the beach 
between ’em an’ the sea. Remember, a good bang 
where the trunk joins the head and then a clean swip 
across the neck with the knife as hard as you can cu sf 
Don’t do nothing but that to as many as you can.” — 

Off we all rushed, he leading us, without a so nal 
save the patter of our feet on the sand until we were 
all between the Elephants and the sea. Then we raised 
a yell, startling and vigorous enough to dominate the 
boom of the breakers. I saw the hindmost monster 


A. Fearsome: Fight 87 


stop and look about enquiringly, I noted that the herd 
had also paused, their dim forms swaying to and fro, 
as they endeavoured to find out by sight or scent the 
cause of theiralarm. Presently another yell completed 
their undoing, and they turned and made for the sea 
again. Now I do not pretend to any daring whatever, 
but if I did, I think I should have been justified in 
wishing to be elsewhere then. The charge of that troop 
of monsters down upon our little band, entirely un- 
versed in this warfare, and armed only with clubs not 
much heavier than a policeman’s truncheon, was a 
severe test of nerve and faith. 

But our chief saved the situation. He faced the 
leader and smote him so felly upon the spot he had 
indicated to us, that the vast mass of the body collapsed 
like a burst bladder and spread itself upon the ground. 
That fired us, and immediately we were all doing 
likewise, yelling like demons at the same time. Why, 
I do not know, but soit was. But we were not to come 
off scatheless. One man missed his blow and his 
footing at the same time, and putting his left arm out 
to save himself from falling thrust it into the monster’s . 
gaping jaws. Now the Sea Elephant can crack pebbles 
as large as goose-eggs like nuts, and does do so, ap- 
parently for sport, so that when we drew Sandy from 
underneath his fallen foe, and prising open the jaw, 
released his arm, it looked more like some shreds of 
red rag than anything else. Some rude ‘ first aid’ 
was applied, and the work of slaughter went on. 

The upshot of the raid was twenty-one elephants 
killed, of which I know our chief was responsible for 
ten. And we were a study in ruffianism—‘ gaumed ’ 
all over with blood and grease, stumbling over the 
smallest stone from very weariness after the reaction 
had come, yet compelled to toil on with only a few 


88 The Sea Elephant 


minutes’ rest at long intervals all through the night at 
the unfamiliar work of skinning those great beasts, Z 
then securing the masses of fat-laden hide to a rope 
dragging the greasy plunder over the intervening space, 
of a roughness hardly conceivable. Yes, it was a crude D 
experience, and remembering the triviality of the 
reward, I am filled with wonder at our folly for ever 
undertaking it. But we did not know, nor did we 
take the trouble to enquire. I must not forget to 
mention before I leave this uninviting part of = 
subject that Sandy did not lose his arm. In spite of 
the bones being broken, nay almost ground to pulp ir 
several places, and the extensive laceration of the flesh, f 
also the exceedingly primitive surgery, he was able to 
use the arm again in six weeks, and long before that ~ 
was assisting as best he could in the work with o ne 
arm. 

Strangely enough, I could put no heart in my ‘works! 
for I could not help feeling all the while that I was in — 
the position of the unprovoked aggressor, and that 
whatever happened to me, I should deserve all I got. 
And that is no frame of mind to go a-whaling or 
a-sealing in. But perhaps I had better not extend my — 
personal recollections of the Sea Elephant any farther, ~ 
or I may convey quite a wrong impression of him. It — 
is true that by accident he or she, as the case may be, 
does inflict serious injury upon the aggressor. But- 
this is quite accidental. I am persuaded that the Sea 
Elephant, except among his fellows at the mating 
season, and even then in far less proportion than the 
common seal, is harmless. As his diet will hese 
he is no insatiable hunter after higher organisms. 
Cuttle-fish, those snaky, uncanny things, that seer 7 
to have been created in order to provide food for a 
full half of the sea mammals, and the lower mollusca, 


Contented with Little 89 


yes, even so small as mussels, are the daily food of the 
Sea Elephant and, like the walrus, very satisfying he 
seems to find them. Secure in his impervious coating 
of fat and hide, he loves to lie upon the battered and 
bare rocks with the spindrift hissing over him, as cosy 
as a cat upon a hearthrug before a blazing fire. Loves 
to watch the gambols of the pups learning to swim in 
the boiling surf, and to nuzzle in the ooze at the bottom 
of the sea for the succulent morsels which cannot escape 
him. Altogether it cannot be denied that the All-Wise 
One has given to the Elephant Seal a high and enviable 
place among the sea mammals; and now that man’s 
desire for his particular products has been satisfied by 
other and more easily and cheaply obtained substitutes 
his lot will be as near being perfect as any animal’s 
can or ought to be. For he has no enemies other than 
man. 


CHAPTER IX 
SEALS _ 


O many and diverse are the varieties of Seals, and 
yet so closely are they allied, that I am compelled 
to take them as one family, and in order to econon my 

of space and reader’s patience, class them perfunctorily 
as one family, which they really are, it is true, but very 
widely severed. Still to the average reader, like 
myself, a Seal is a Seal, and there’s an end on’t, whether 
the precise naturalist may class it as Sea Lion, : 
Bear, Sea Leopard, Harp Seal, Saddle-back Seal, or 
any other arbitrary distinction whatever. These 
minutiz, deeply valuable as they are, do not interest 
us; we only want to know enough to satisfy our 
curiosity, not enough to qualify us to be curators 
our local museum. We have other work todo. Fre 
the sea elephant then, down to the next largest, 7 
Sea Lion, is a longish step. No such gap, in point o! of 
size, separates the rest of the Seals, wide as their 
diversities are. But in one respect, agility, speed, 2 id 
grace, tria juncta in uno, they are all far superior to 
the sea elephant. 4 

No one who has ever watched a Seal in his native 
element, and possessed anything of an eye for beauty 4 
of curve and grace of motion, can ever forget the 
exponent of these delights to the eye. No fish, sv im 
he swiftly as he may, can hope to escape the pursuit 
of the Seal. Like a streak of brown light, he glides 


90 


A Living Miracle gI 


through the sea and grips his finny prey when fleeing 
at top speed. And he has need; for the Seal has, 
like the shark, a tormenting liver. Not in the direction 
of indigestion, but of digestion. Its secretion of 
digestive juices is so abundant that hardly is the 
stomach filled before it is empty again. And who 
can wonder at it after witnessing the amazing ex- 
penditure of energy by one of these beautiful creatures 
during one bright morning, say off the Pribyloff 
Islands ? 

Yet there is one feature of the Seal’s life that is 
truly miraculous, not to be accounted for by any 
known hypothesis whatever. For ten months of the 
year the ‘old man’ Seal needs, and gets, fully one 
hundredweight of fish per day to keep him fit. During 
the other two months he fights, makes love, never 
sleeps, never drinks, and never eats. Behold here a 
natural miracle. Many animals there be who fast 
through longer periods, but all their natural forces 
are quiescent, dormant ;» the waste of tissue is in- 
finitesimal. The Seal only, throughout the most 
strenuous period each year of his intensely strenuous 
life, neither eats nor drinks nor sleeps for two months 
on end. 

There are many things in the lives of animals, even 
those closely associated with us, which are difficult 
to understand, but this little matter of the Seal’s 
abstinence from nourishment and rest during the time 
of his greatest activity is, I think, the most marvellous 
and non-understandable of all. Like other animals, 
normally gentle at every other period of the year, 
except the mating season, the male Seal is then trans- 
formed from the soft-eyed amiable amphibian, harmless 
as a dove to everything, except the fish upon which 
he lives, into a furious beast with bristling moustache, 


Q2 Seals 


bared teeth, and glaring eyes, ever spoiling for a fight, 
and as often as not covered with torn and gory wounds 
from head to foot. These do not seem to cause m 


Not that he is guilty of fighting for fighting’s sake 
alone—I would not do him that injustice. First of 
all, upon arriving at the breeding-place to which th 
colony of Seals he belongs to resort each year, each 
male selects a spot where he and the mate or mates 
who will presently arrive (for the Seal is not mono- 
gamous) may lodge. It should be as near the sea as 
possible, and also near a beach, but its location is” 
preferred among the rocks or rough ground. Having | 
selected a spot about ten feet square, the thing is to 
retain it against the ever-arriving Seals from their 
oceanic wanderings, each eager to eject some already 
established landholder. So it is fight and watch day. 
and night to hold their own. 

By-and-by the female Seals arrive, each a mother 
elect, and then the scene simply baffles description. 
It says volumes for the vitality of the poor females, that 
they not only survive the terrible treatment they re- 
ceive, but actually seem little the worse for it. As_ 
each one reaches the rocks she is pounced upon by a 
roaring frenzied mob of males, seemingly bent upon 
tearing her limb from limb. Not only is she bitten and — 
torn most shamefully, but she is banged upon the rocks © 
as if she were a mass of india-rubber rather than a_ 
living thing. Finally, she becomes the prize of the 
most vigorous, who seizes her with his teeth by her 
neck, drags her off to his reservation, and dumps her 
down there. Then having fought to obtain her, he 
must now fight to keep her, and in between-whiles do 
a little skirmishing, if haply he may wanee an extra 
wife or so, 


ih ees wen 


A FUR SEAL ROOKERY. 


[To facesp. 93- 


Seal Domesticities 93 


Now the happy proprietor ot a harem must keep close 
and careful watch, less prowling Lotharios should steal 
| one. of his hardly won wives, or lest any discontented 
| spouse should venture to creep away. But even the 
| tremendous endurance of the male Seal has its limits, 
and it frequently happens that, exhausted by his priva- 
tions and exertions, a husband will find some cunning 
rival come in and eject him. Then there is nought 
for him to do but to go to sea again and endeavour by 
steady attention to hunting to make up for the stamina 
he has dissipated in the late riots. 

Meanwhile, the baby Seals arrive. They receive 
little attention from their mothers, who listlessly allow 
them to gorge themselves on the rich milk and thrive 
amazingly. As for the males, they take no notice of 
the pups whatever, seem indeed to be unaware of their 
presence. By-and-by the young Seal or floe-rat must 
be taught to swim—another amazing thing about this 
wonderfully interesting creature. All land animals, 
except man, swim instinctively if flung into water even 
when just born. But the Seal, than whom no more 
graceful and enduring swimmer lives in or out of the sea, 
must needs learn laboriously how to comport himself in 
the water. And his mother teaches him. Of course, 
he is an apt learner, as all young animals are of what 
their mother has to teach them. 

As he grows older he and his thousands of comrades 
get away from the colony by themselves and play, 
gambolling about all day long, only journeying from 
the playground to the sea and back. What they live 
upon after they are weaned until the whole colony goes 
to sea again is not known. Those that are killed and 
examined never seem to have anything in their stomach 
but stones. And it has been well established as a fact 
that, upon the arrival of the colony at their ‘ rookery,’ 


94 Seals 


all the fish in the neighbourhood take the hint and go © 
away. But at last there comes a time when a general — 
move is made seaward, and soon that densely thronged — 
patch of land, where the noise had been so deafening — 
that one can only liken it to the noise of two express — 
trains passing one another in the tunnel, is wrapt in © 
primeval silence, only the occasional sullen boom of a — 
breaker, or the scream of a lonely sea-bird, punctuating — 
the stillness. | ig 

Now begins the truly happy time of the Seal’s life. — 
That stormy four months ashore for the parents, and — 
incidentally for the young ones also, has passed like a — 
hideous nightmare, and the beautiful free life of a deep- — 
sea denizen is before them. They roam singly whither- — 
soever they will all over the free ocean, feeding, ever — 
feeding from the bounteous store provided for them. — 
When weary they sleep upon the surface, and I have 
often in the North Pacific passed them so sleeping, — 
rocked in the embrace of the curling waves, hundreds — 
of miles from land. No one really knows how far they 
go, how wide their range is during the eight months — 
they are away from their birthplace. But it seems 
difficult to believe that they ever pass through the — 
tropics, having such a rooted objection to warmth. — 
Of course, there are several kinds of Seals who frequent — 
the temperate zones, notably the protected rookery — 
on the Farallone Islands, so near the city of San © 
Francisco that one of the attractions offered to visitors — 
at the Ocean House is that they may sit on the verandah ~ 
and watch the free gambols of the Seals. 

Of course the Seal has enemies, stealthy and — 
voracious. The killer whale, for instance, has an 
uncanny habit of slipping up upon a sleeping Seal and ~ 
swallowing him at a gulp. One grampus, indeed, ~ 
stranded upon the Californian coast, and cut up bya — 


Sealing Horrors 95 


party of ’longshoremen, was found to have a nice little 
family of fourteen full-grown Seals in his capacious 
maw. And it is highly probable that he came to 
grief through chasing another one which fled ashore 
on a falling tide. Sharks, too, are apt to take toll of an 
unwary or sleeping Seal, turning noiselessly beneath 
them and taking a huge bite out of them, as they 
are wont to do out of a fish. But when it is remem- 
bered that the Seal is gregarious only while ashore 
or on the ice, it will at once be seen that the toll 
taken of them by these voracious sea monsters is 
after all very small. The white bear gets a few 
Seals too, but not many compared with the enor- 
mous numbers of them that may be seen lying about 
on the ice. 

~The one enemy which counts is man. I do not 
propose to harrow my readers’ souls by describing the 
method of slaying Seals for market, not only for the 
valuable seal skins which adorn our ladies in winter, 
but for the oil and leather. It is a sordid, horrible 
business, which cannot be written about nicely. There 
is a grim and bloody reality about it that horrifies. 
For my part I shall never forger Burn-Murdoch’s cry of 
horror in his book, Edinburgh to the Antarctic, where 
he speaks of the newly flayed Seal lifting itself redly 
towards heaven in the glowing sunshine as if asking its 
Maker why this thing should be. The seal-fishery 
is, no doubt, apart from its horrible and unnecessary 
brutality, a terrific business for man to engage in. 
Whether in the howling Antarctic, among those stern 
rocks of South Georgia or South Shetland, or in the 
Arctic among the ice-floes, it is a test of man’s 
capacity to endure that has probably no equal. Every 
day death in his most awful forms must be faced. Filth, 
stench, hunger, and blighting cold must be met as part 


96 Seals 


of the day’ s work, until the very meaning of the v 
comfort is forgotten. | a 
And the pay ? Ah, well, as it always is unfailing 
the rewards go to those who have done nothing but Ic 
easily at home in luxury. Lady, with the hundree ig 
guinea seal-skin coat, know for a certainty that t 
men who looked death between the eyes and brutalised 
themselves lower than the shark to wrench that conte 
yours from its rightful owners got less than a hundre d 
pence for so doing. The bulk of that money went t 
city magnates and full-fed speculators who never gav 
its origin a second thought. 43 
Of late years the indiscriminate slaughter of Seal Is 
having threatened to exterminate them entirely, a 
deal of diplomatic intervention has taken place for ti 
purpose, first, of giving the Seal a close time, anc , | 
secondly, of protecting the immature Seal. But it is 
a difficult thing to control men who become so awe ‘ 
as seal-hunters do from the nature of their calling, anc 
I fear that as far as the fur Seal is concerned, at ar =a * 
rate, the day of his extinction is not far off. 
Remains only to note the extreme intelligence and 
teachability of the Seal. Most of us are familiar wit . 
this beautiful creature in Zoological Gardens, where 
its restricted quarters cannot conceal its wonderful 
grace. Some of us too will recollect a group of trained 
Seals taught to perform on musical instruments, play 
football, etc. But none of us who have seen the Seal 
at home, and have revelled in Kipling’s inimitable 
story of Kotick’s career, will need any reminding E 
in the Seal, no matter of what kind, we have one of the 
most wonderful, amiable and intelligent of all God’s 
creatures, whether ashore or in the deep sea. er, 


Ladd 


SOME TYPICAL SHARKS, 


[To face p. 97. 


at eae 
a . <a 


. CHAPTER X 
THE SHARK 


ASSING from sea mammals to fish proper is a mo- 
mentous step, and merits a little introduction, in 
any case. But when one must begin the fish 

section with Sharks the introduction becomes impera- 
tive. For the Shark is in some respects a sort of con- 
necting link between the mammal and the fish. A true 
fish, the Shark has yet the family or parental instinct 
of which nearly all other fish are destitute, a notable 
exception being the stickleback of fresh water, which 
does love its young. Another curious characteristic 
of the Shark family throughout its numerous branches 
is that it has no bones. Only cartilage. From the 
Basking Shark as big as a grampus, down to the 
skate, not a bone among them. 

Another peculiarity of the Shark tribe is the stigma 
attaching to them, whereby the word Shark has become 
a synonym for a murderous thief, a creature without 
feeling or honour or repentance. I hold no brief for 
the Shark, but justice is justice, and certainly the Shark 
has had meted out to him nought but injustice through- 
out the years. Whether at this time of day it is not 
a forlorn hope to expect justice to be done to the Shark 
is another matter, and one upon which I express no 


‘ opinion. I only know that amid the many fantastic 


Shark stories extant, based upon utter ignorance of this 
wonderful citizen of the Deep Sea, his habits and his 


97 7 


98 The Shark 


usefulness, it seems well worth while inserting a little — 
truth. Which is what I propose to do. 

Let it be admitted at the outset that the Shark is — 
not beautiful. In colour, no matter what branch of the — 
Squalidae may be represented,there is always an absence 
of any tint pleasing to the eye. A dirty grey or dirty — 
slate colour alternating with livid white is the prevailing 
shade of the Shark, and even the stripes of the Tiger — 
Shark are not, as one might suppose, of the deep rich _ 
colour of the animal from which the name is taken, — 
As to shape, the same strictures may apply. Unbeauti- — 
ful in any case must be the verdict, most emphatically — 
so when we come to the Raiidae, or Skate branch of the 
great family. . 

Then all Sharks have a sinister, villainous appear- 
ance from the shape and position of their jaw, and the ~ 
cold deadly expression in their eyes. Especially is this — 
the case with the least known of the family suchas the — 
Thresher, and the Sawfish (Pristis). One of the most — 
awful-looking of ocean monsters, although I believe — 
quite harmless to man, belongs to the Raiidae, the — 
Giant Skate or ‘ alligator guard’ of the Mexican Gulf, — 
known locally by the sinister sobriquet of Piscau del — 
Diablo, or devil-fish. And as if all these disadvantages — 
were not sufficient to load the poor creature with, — 
hundreds of yarns have been invented, published, and — 
incorporated in authentic natural histories concerning — 
the Shark, of which it is only stating the barest fact to — 
say that not one per cent. of them have a grain ofaruth — 
in them. a 

Let it be admitted also as part of the indictment — 
of the Shark, that he is an eater of human flesh, and — 
does not always wait until the subject is dead. But 
what fish is not ? It cannot be too clearly understood — 
that all fish are omnivorous as regards flesh or fish, 


Justice for Sharks 99 


nothing comes amiss to them, any of them. But to 
single out the Shark for opprobrium on this head is 
absurd, as absurd as is the invention of such idiotic 
stories as the Shark following a ship at sea because on 
board there is one sick. Much better to recognise in 
the Shark an evidence of the eternal wisdom of God, 
Who has here provided a race of large creatures in the 
sea possessed of an amazing appetite and absolutely 
indifferent to the quality of the food they eat, except 
that it must be flesh or fish—living or dead matters 
nothing. And in the agony of hunger, for agony it 
must be, they do not always stop to make sure that 
what they are swallowing is succulent flesh. I have 
seen a Shark swallow a bag of cinders flung overboard 
purposely. Consider how great must be the torment 
of an appetite that can thus drive a carnivore to so 
bitter and unsatisfying a morsel. 

Now, having stated briefly what can with truth and 
honesty be said against the Shark, let us consider him 
a little more closely. And in order to do this it will be 
necessary, I think, to use a little imagination, yet 
imagination restrained by fact. 

At the base of that great mountain in the South 
Atlanti¢é, whose summit is named on the charts Fern- 
ando do Noronha, there lay side by side in the cool 
_ gloom of that depth two ordinary Sharks. Male and 
female, husband and wife, they had enjoyed each other’s 
society as only monogamous creatures can, and now 
the time had come that they must part. For the rule 
of the Shark tribe is sulitary hunting, or if crowds 
gather at a banquet, all ties for the time are merged 
.in the one overmastering desire for food. Whether 
they would ever meet again troubled them not at all— 
we are the only creatures of God’s great family who are 
troubled about the future—but they felt bitterly the 


1 core) The Shark 


present pang of parting. They lay side by side all 
silently, with fins and tails gently vibrating and con- — 
veying all that they needed to express between them. 

Suddenly the male Shark gave one great sweep of his 

tail and was gone. Yet not so swiftly but that a bright © 
blue spot behind him had darted forward and taken up 

its station just above his broad snout as he steadily 

plunged southward toward the roaring forties. 

Only a little time elapsed, and then, sedately as 
became a matron with growing responsibility, the lady 
Shark got under way also and proceeded due east. 
And in like manner as at the departure of her husband 
a tiny blue form shot out from the shadows behind her 
and took up its station over her broad nose. She was 
a fine specimen of the Common Shark, about nine feet 
long with a dark grey skin and a dorsal fin (gafftopsail 
of the sailor) that when she neared the surface stood 
up nearly a foot out of the water. Her head was 
eighteen inches across and the upper lobe of her tail 
was nearly two feet long, with an auxiliary finon itsix | 
inches deep. She was six years old, and had been 
round the Cape of Good Hope as many times as she had | 
years of age, and yet she was entirely dependent upon 
the goodwill, fidelity, and skill of that tiny blue thing 
which kept its position above her nose without any 
apparent movement as she steadily made her way to 
the east. 

It was a ‘ pilot’ fish, one of the most beautiful as 
well as one of the smallest of the Scombridae, the great 
mackerel family, unique, however, in its strange love 
for the society of the Shark and its self-constituted 
pilotage of that great fish. Here, in parenthesis, I 
would remark upon the strange way in which men’s 
minds are constituted. The fantastic tales about 
Sharks before noted will be accepted without a boggle 


A Strange Companionship 101 


by the very men who will scornfully reject absolute 
facts concerning the pilot fish’s relation to the Shark. 
I do not know why, nor do I think any one does. For 
there are thousands of facts in natural history as well 
authenticated as sunrise and sunset, far stranger than 
is this bond between Shark and pilot-fish, concerning 
which I shall only use facts of my own observation, and 
none whatever of hearsay. 

The strangely assorted pair proceeded in symme- 
trical order for some hours upon a course as definite 
as if laid down on a chart and steered by compass. 
And while they were thus wending their way together 
so harmoniously let us consider briefly the pilot-fish, 
since apart from his association with the Shark he has 
little interest for us. A beautifully shaped little fish, 
marked with transverse bands of blue and gold—the blue 
of that intensity seen only in fish and tinted to show 
against the blue of the sea. A pair of golden-rimmed 
eyes keep unwinking watch ahead, and the golden fins— 
dorsal, pectoral, ventral, and caudal—seem as if frozen 
stiff, so rapid are their vibrations. A fish built for 
speed, but one of the feeble folk of the deep sea, for 
he is only about eight inches long. But why, oh why 
does a pretty creature like that attach itself to the 
Shark? As the Spaniards are so fond of saying, 
Quien sabe? Here the answer is, must be, that nobody 
knows, nobody can know. We must take the facts as 
we find them, and be as contented as we can. 

Suddenly, like a flash of blue light, the little fellow 
has left his station. So swiftly has he sped that the 
eye can hardly follow him. He reaches a huge mass 
of seaweed, goes round it, and returning, visits first 
one side of the Shark’s face and then the other, then 
resumes his station just over the nose. Now, during 
the time of the pilot’s absence the Shark has never 


102 The Shark 


swerved from her course, has neither accelerated nor 
diminished her speed. Apparently she has perfect 
confidence in her little blue attendant. And who, 
possessing any observation whatever, can doubt that 
on his return from his scouting journey the pilot has 
in some mysterious way conveyed a message something 
like this: ‘I smelt something good; went and had a 
look. Nothing but a bundle of seaweed with a few 
miserable little fry in it. No use to you.’ I have 
always felt sure upon seeing such a manoeuvre per- 
formed that in some way or another, I know not nor 
can I speculate how, a conversational message ened 
that has passed from pilot to piloted. 

On, ever on, by day and by night, through the clear 
sea not far from the surface, the strangely assorted pair 
proceed with occasional deviations on the pilot’s part 
in chase of the tiny organisms upon which this little 
chubby mackerel lives. But, alas! for his huge friend, 
times are indeed hard. No corrupting mass of offal in 
the shape of some dead sea monster is found ; nothing 
at all to eat for two days with the demon of hunger 
savagely gnawing at that massive liver and goading 
the starving creature to frenzy. A floating log covered 
with parasitical sea growths and attended by a swarm 
of fish of many kinds, but principally dolphin, cory- 
phaena, and skip-jack—another species of mackerel— 
is passed within a mile or so. Pilot sets off at top speed 
to reconnoitre, Shark, unable to wait, follows, and 
reaching the object, launches herself fiercely at it tearing 
at the solid wood as if she would compel nutriment to 
spring fromit. The attendant fish vanish affrightedly ; 
there is no danger of any of them feeling those lethal 
jaws, being in speed and agility far vir gyre“ to any 
Shark. 


Jn a little while her rage moderates, a considerable 


The Hunger Search 103 


quantity of gelatinous matter, mostly foot-stalks of 
barnacles torn off the log, have gone down into her 
aching maw, which it appeases, though it does not 
satisfy. When suddenly the little pilot, which has 
been flitting about at a little distance from its principal 
agitatedly watching her manceuvres, darts off to the 
southward, followed closely by the Shark. By what 
amazing powers of intuition or of sight this little 


creature knows that some miles away there lies a 


ship I do not know, I only know that such powers as 


enable it to be assured of such a presence at that 


distance it does possess. That it should know of 
the peculiar quality ships have of shedding choice 
morsels in their wake may be merely a matter of 
memory, such as most deep-sea pelagic fish have, 
making them seek and keep the company of slow- 
moving or stationary ships for many days at a time. 
Presently they come up with the vessel and pass under 
the shade of her broad bilge, sniffing at the smell she 
gives forth of something. Several of the Shark’s poor 
relatives, the semi-parasitical Remorae or suckers, 
hastily detach themselves from the ship -and dart 
away into the depths, compelled to action for once 
by the knowledge that otherwise they will immediately 
be devoured. Round and round the ship they go, 
the pilot, in a high state of excitement, darting to and 
fro between Shark and ship as if carrying perpetual 
messages, while the Shark’s cold greenish eyes never 
cease their steadfast gaze upon that vast shadow 
which may presently yield something to eat. 
Meanwhile, some of the sailors aloft have caught 
sight of that stealthy form gliding along beneath 
them, and, in spite of their modernity, feel cold chills 
creeping down their spines as they view the messenger, 
as they think, of evil. We are heirs of the ages, 


104 The Shark 


inheriting their wisdom, but, alas! how many of us, 
partially instructed or careless of learning, and devoid 
of that most uncommon of all qualities, common-sense, 
find that we hold in mortmain an awful legacy of 
superstition and cruelty that has come down to us 
untinctured by any spirit of love, of mercy, or of 
progress! So these sailors do really believe that the 
presence of that Shark means that one of them will 
presently fall sick and die, or that one of them will fall 
overboard and be devoured, and that the Shark knows 
this, and has come purposely from he knows not what 
part of the ocean for this terrible bequest. And one of 
those sailors, a young man, awfully ignorant, steeped 
to the lips in superstition, which in the ignorant nearly 
always takes the place of Christianity, whether in a 
religious form or otherwise, trembles so that he misses 
his footing and, with a mad clutching at vacancy, 
falls a hundred feet or so into the sea. There is a wild 
running to and fro, a frantic tearing at boats’ gripes 
rusted firm by months of disuse ; but before the boat 
is freed from her trammels, it is remarked that, calm 
though the sea is, our shipmate is nowhere to be seen. 
And the boat is not lowered—there is no need. 

Far beneath the surface, the Shark is finishing her 
meal, the first really satisfying one she has had for 
three days; and who shall say that she does not feel 
grateful to some invisible, non-understandable Power 
who has provided it? But in the hearts of all on 
board there is a dull, solemn feeling of hatred for the 
unconscious scavenger of the deep sea who happened 
to be on the spot at the right time to eat a man who 
fell overboard and was killed by the impact of the 
water. So that when, next morning, again hungry, 
the Shark cruises around, great preparations are made 
to prevent this hideous, man-destroying monster from 


Maternity v. Hunger 105 


committing any more crime. A four-pound piece of 
_ pork is stuck upon a great hook riveted to a foot of 
stout chain, which is secured to a rope strong enough 
to lift aton. This is lowered over the stern and then 
splashed up and down once or twice. In a moment 
the little pilot is there, quivering with excitement, 
nosing the meat, darting off a little way and returning, 
with a curious undecided air. At last he vanishes, 
returning in another minute with the Shark following 
slowly. She comes up to the bait, turns slowly on 
her back, sinking slightly until the bait is just entering 
_ the glistening cavity of her mouth, and then the second 
mate, who has been watching her movements with 
almost feverish anxiety, being young, makes a grab 
at the rope, and the bait leaps out of the water. 
The anxiety of the pilot at this strange phenomenon 
is almost painful to witness. He seems to know that 
all is not well, and his passing to and fro between the 
Shark and the newly lowered bait is like the glinting 
of summer lightning. For some time the Shark 
hesitates—that compact mass of pork is so tempting 
—but at last, as if suddenly making up her mind, 
Mistress Shark turns at right angles to the ship and 
hastens slowly away. A greater power than even 
hunger has called her, and next morning, at daybreak, 
sees her lying quietly upon the waves at the surface 
of the sea surrounded by sixteen Sharklets, among 
whom the pilot moves with a comical air of proprietor- 
ship. And they, the new-comers, take no heed of 
the busy, friendly little creature until, with a leap 
like that of a dolphin, he herds the lively group to- 
gether and leads the way down the Shark’s gaping 
mouth into the haven of refuge she provides for her 
young. It was only the advent of a hungry male 
Shark, a lithe sinister brute, who, to the mother, 


106 The Shark 


loomed large as a veritable demon of destruction to — 
her offspring, for, strange as it may appear to most — 
people, the Shark is a most loving parent, and although ~ 
she can only shelter her young within her body, not — 
knowing how to protect them by fighting for them, — 
she is nevertheless torn by anxiety on their behalf. 

Now for many days she has no rest at all. With the — 
solicitude of a mother-hen for her chicks, she watches — 
over that group of Sharklings, shepherded by the pilot, — 
whom they are rapidly outgrowing, sheltered in her — 
bosom and fed; yes, fed, though often the mother — 
feels as if vultures were tearing at her liver, until at — 
last there comes a day when the youngsters, having — 
grown sufficiently to take, and make, their own way _ 
through this watery world, leave her one by one and 
melt into the void, to lead henceforward an indepen- — 
dent existence in that great ocean expanse, and the ~ 
deserted mother seeks another mate who may provide ~ 
her with a new family to suffer for and be deserted — 
by i in their due turn. é 

In the few preceding pages I have dealt with , 
the Shark as if there were only one kind, although © 
I did carefully mention that there were others of © 
the same family. But, as a matter of fact, there are — 
more varieties of the Shark family than of any other — 
fish family living, with the possible exception of the — 
mackerel. I have never been able to reckon up how 


many Sharks there are of distinctly different cha- 


racteristics, but an enormous number there certainly 
are, all characterised by the one feature, that of — 
enormous eaters of garbage. Sharks with wide mouths, 
armed with seven rows of teeth, each an inch long, and — 
with triangular edges saw-toothed, finer than any 
surgical instrument ever made. Sharks with wide — 
mouths, armed with fifty rows of needle-like teeth, 


Curious Sharks 107 
Bie the use of which one can only conjecture, and Sharks 
whose vast jaws are lined within with a sort of curious 
_ mosaic of pearly surface, as if the mouth were a mill 
ie in which could be ground or triturated the most 
_ obstinate substances. Indeed, the arrangement of 
_ these palatal and labial plates in some of the Sharks 
is a matter for profoundest admiration. Nothing 
like it can be seen in any other animal in the wide 
_ world. 
a Then there is the wondrous Saw-fish (Pristis), a most 
_ amazing Shark, abounding in Eastern seas, who has 
_ grown from his skull, right out before him, a flat mass 
_ of stiff cartilage edged with ivory teeth, set at regular 
intervals of about three quarters of an inch. For 
some strange reason, which I do not pretend to fathom, 
_ this curious weapon has come to be confounded with 
_ the sword of the Sword-fish (Xip/ias), which I have 
_ already described, and in country houses where there 
__ are one or two specimens hanging in the hall, the visitor 
_ is calmly invited to view the weapon with which ships 
are sunk! No one seems to consider that even if the 
_ saw (not sword) were made of tempered steel, instead 
of stiffened cartilage, it would be impossible for any 
_ force behind it to drive it into anything tougher than 
fat, because there is no point to it; a sort of snout, 
slightly turned up at the end, terminates it; and 
_ again, the saw-like arrangement of the teeth on each 
side of it preclude the idea of its being a piercing 
weapon. No, its function, though gruesome enough, 
is not that of sinking ships by perforating their bilges. 
_ This particular shark has a wide mouth, lined with 
_ from forty to sixty rows of infinitesimal, needle-like 
' teeth. He is a specialist in food, and although not 
averse to mumbling decaying carrion, should it come 
__ his way, has a pleasant little fashion of disembowelling 


108 The Shark 


fish by a push of his saw beneath them, and then 
nuzzling in the soft entrails, the only food that he really — 
cares about. These Sharks grow to a length of fifteen — 


feet and weight of a ton. 


Then there is the Thresher Shark, with which I 


have dealt pretty fully in the chapter on the Mysticetus, 


the sole peculiarity of which is the abnormally long — 
upper lobe to his tail, used as a sort of flail wherewith - 


to beat the hapless mammal. Sharks of weird aspect 


but of no large capacity of mouth abound also in the — 
great depths of the sea, and are only brought to the © 
surface in a more or less mutilated condition, owing © 
to the tremendous change of pressure during their ;. 


passage upward. 


But one of the most interesting of the Shark tribe — 
is the parasitical or semi-parasitical Remora. This — 


small shark (seven pounds weight is about their 
_ Maximum) has an extraordinary arrangement on the 
top of its head (which is perfectly flat) whereby it can 
attach itself so firmly to any floating body as not to 
be detachable by any force applied except at the cost 
of rending the fish asunder—unless one knows the 
trick which the fish itself uses, in which case the creature 
is detached in a moment without difficulty, and darts 
off at a high speed to find some other host to which 
it may attach itself. A ship or a whale matters little, 
—its object is to be carried along in the immediate 
vicinity of food which it may obtain by merely opening 
its mouth and closing it at intervals. I have already 
noted the suckers’ delightful quarters in the mouth of 
a right whale, adhering to the palate with its head 
pointed in the direction from whence the whale’s food 


enters, so that it easily receives tithe of all without — 
the slightest effort on its part to obtain it. So you © 
shall find a whole family of Remorae attached to one — 


Appetite Extraordinary 109 


_ whale—outside or inside matters little—all contented 
_ and happy in their utter dependence upon their gigantic 
host. Even certain huge specimens of their own race 
_ find them shelter occasionally, for Dr. Giinther records 
an instance of a huge Shark of a harmless kind whose 
_ teeth were covered with membrane and who gave 
shelter in its mouth to a whole colony of Remorae. 
To this very queer fish he gave the name of Rhinodon 
typicus. 

Of the voracity of the family generally I have 
already said a little, but I feel impelled to return to 
_ the subject for a brief space, because it is one that can 
hardly be realised by shore people at all. Let me try 
_ and express my meaning as simply and briefly as pos- 

sible. We once caught a humpback whale in Vau 
_ Vau which sank as we were preparing to tow it to the 
_ ship, i.e. passing a rope through its lips. The sun 
__ had set and the swift tropical twilight had descended, 
_ so that we saw it was useless to attempt the long weary 
task of raising our spoil from the coral bed on which 

it had settled before daylight next morning. So one 
boat lay by the carcase all night—it was only twenty- 
five fathoms down—and watched with crawly sensa- 
tions the brilliant bands of green light beneath, showing 
_ where the great scavengers came and went. It was 
a very long night, and many an inaudible prayer was 
put up during those hours of darkness, I know. At 
last day dawned and work commenced immediately. 

I need not describe the tedious process of raising a 

whale from the bottom by the aid of a couple of boats 

—it isa weary job. At last, however, we were gratified 
_ to find the great weight beneath becoming lighter and 
* lighter until at last, with almost a bound, the huge 

body reached the surface. It was the centre of a host 

of ravenous Sharks, some of them as long as one of our 


IIo The Shark 


whaleboats, and all of them were tearing at the body — 
as if they iad fasted for years and their first meal was 
now about to be taken from them. It had only been — 
at their mercy for about eight hours; and it was half — 
gone; that is to say, in that brief time these useful — 
sea-scavengers had eaten about thirty tons of meat, © 
blubber, and bone, and were now apparently as un- — 
satisfied as ever.’ We started to tow, feeling that it — 
was hardly worth while, and accompanied by an — 
uncountable horde of the devourers, but after towing i 
for an hour were compelled to let go, because we were — 
drifting on to a reef. And I was right glad. I felt © 
sure that by the time we arrived at the ship—another — 
six or eight hours—we should have had only our labour 7 
for our pains. i 

A whole wealth of literature lies in the discussion — 
of the Raitae, those homely, shark-like creatures whose 
flesh is so highly esteemed by the London peor, where — 
fried skate is a morsel to be delighted in when served ~ 
up in penn’orths with crisp fried potatoes. The terrible — 
Sting Ray of tropical seas, whose tail is a flexible rod _ 
set with razor blades secured diagonally, and is used — 


as an instrument of correction by the South-sea trader | 
upon his wives,’ and the no less terrible Alligator | 


Guard of the Mexican Gulf, a fearsome monster some 


sixty square feet in area and with a peculiar twist | 
for leaping out of the water after dark. One hardly | 


knows where to draw the line in dealing with this | 


extraordinary family of universal rangers of the deep | 


sea; the feeling will force itself in that not a chapter 
or so is needed, but a whole volume each, to describe | 
the beings and doings of one fish family. : 

I dismiss as utterly unworthy of any notice what- | 
ever all the stories that have been told of the Shark’s ~ 


1 Vide Louis Becke, By Reef and Paim, 


A Plea for the Shark tif 


innate ferocity and calculating devilishness. As I 
have often had the pleasure in saying, the Shark eats 
man, not because he loves man to eat, but because man 
_ when he falls overboard is usually easy to get. If the 
_ man be a good noisy swimmer, no Shark will venture 
near, for they are, though tormented with hunger, 
a most nervous and timid race, and, indeed, always 
- seem to me to lose a great many opportunities through 
_ diffidence. I do not love the Shark in any of his 
_ varieties, but I do love justice, and so, in spite of my 
_ predilections against the Shark, I have endeavoured 
_ to write of him (or her) fairly, as I would wish to be 
_ written about myself if I were a Shark. I am very 
_ glad I am not. 
z A very large section of the Shark family live at 
immense depths. So it has been discovered of late 
_ years by the indefatigable labours of such men as 
_ Messrs. Goode and Bean, of the Smithsonian Institute 
_ at Washington, and the Italian professors who have 
_ made oceanic ichthyology their special study. But, 
_ unlike most of the deep-sea fishes, as opposed to the 
- surface or near-the-surface fish, the Sharks do not 
_ confine themselves to the profundities. They ap- 
_ parently seek those mysterious depths to breed— 
_ many of them deposit their eggs in carefully adapted 
purses of toughened membrane so arranged that they 
will open of themselves at the right time, then, having 
_ provided for the continuation of the species as far as: 
_ they are concerned, they return to the surface. Others 
_ again spend all their time in the depths, except when 
_ the family is coming, at which time they ascend into 
_ the upper and warmer strata. For it cannot be too 
- carefully noted that below a depth of about a hundred 
_ fathoms the temperature of the sea is the same every- 
_ where from Pole to Pole. The exceptions to this rule 


pat 
as 


I12 The Shark 


are the bursting-up places where boiling springs arise 


from subterranean fires and of necessity raise the 
temperature of the surrounding sea; or the outlets 
of submarine volcanoes fiercely struggling to assert 
their destructive power against the unthinkable mass 
of superincumbent water. Apart from these excep- 
tions, the temperature of the sea below one hundred 
fathoms is about thirty-one degrees Fahrenheit, or 
just above the freezing-point of salt water. 

But we are neglecting our Sharks, who, with an 
adaptability shown by no other fish, come and go 
between the surface and depths of four to five thousand 
feet. Especially the Rays, who in all their varieties 
are great travellers up and down, being found at all 
depths from ten to one thousand fathoms. And 
unlike the usual deep-sea denizens they do not acquire 
any very great alterations of physique; to be sure, 
the ordinary Skate is sufficiently hideous for anything. 
I vividly remember, when second mate of the ‘ Har- 
binger’ in Table Bay, some twenty-two years ago, 
fishing for craw-fish with an improvised net made of 
spun yarn netted on to a big iron hoop. Feeling a 
great jerking at the rope, I called for help, and we 
hauled to the surface a Skate fully six feet across 
from tip to tip of his ‘ wings.’ He was far too large 
and heavy to be hauled on board like that, so we 
harpooned him, and after a long struggle succeeded 
in getting him aboard. 

He lay on deck, a thing of utter hideousness in form 
and colour, so much so that after gazing upon him for 
a little while, the repulsiveness of the creature made 
me feel quite ill, And the great mouth lined with 
teeth just like ours, opening and shutting convulsively, 
looked appallingly human. I was roused from my 
shuddering fit by the sight of one of the boys just 


ee ee ee ee 


An Object-Lesson 113 


offering to put his finger in the mouth. I pulled him 
away, and holding him by the arm, inserted a stick 
f wood an inch square into that quivering cavity. 
Instz ntly the jaws closed, there was a grinding sound, 
a the stick fell in two halves, bitten through as 
cleanly as a horse bites a carrot. The boy had learned 
is lesson. That Skate became the prey of the sailors, 
wt yho much appreciated him fried, and although we 
la fairly large crew there was enough meat on his 
s to give them a good supper and breakfast. 
“Here we will leave the Sharks; for, although I 
e said practically nothing of the Dog Fish, I feel 
th t there is not really sufficient distinction between 
the mand the usual Shark to warrant any detailed 
aria about them. The Dog-fish is just a small 


* 
x 

2% CS MEL 
eet ack 
po 


CHAPTER ta ea 
THE TURTLE 


ERE we come upon a déepiend aettieal sit beac 4 
pies an almost unique position among his fellows, % 
in that he has noenemies butman. The exceptions — 

being the sperm whale and the sea elephant, as I have — 
before noted. This freedom from the fear of instant — 
death at the mouth of a fellow-citizen is so unusual — 
among the deep-sea people that when an exception | 
comes it makes itself noticeable. But not only does the 
Turtle commend itself to us as unique in this respect, it — 
is also one of the strangest of all the amphibia. The © 
whales must come to the surface frequently to breathe, ~ 
and we know fairly well upon what they feed. The seal 
cannot remain beneath the sea nearly as long as the — 
whale, and his food is very well known ; but the Turtle, © 
in all his varieties, in all his ways, is mysterious beyond — 
the power of superlatives to express. It does not seem ~ 
to matter to him whether he stays beneath the surface 
for an hour or a week, nor does it trouble him to spend © 
an equal time on land, if the need arises. He is neither | 
fish, flesh, nor towl, yet his flesh partakes of the charac- ~ 
teristics of all three. Eating seems a mere superfluity ~ 


up in a barrel (with the bung out) and emerge at the ~ 
long last apparently none the worse tor his enforced 
abstinence from food, from light, and almost from air. ~ 

His range is restricted to the temperate and tropical jj 


114 


The Turtle Pair II5 


- seas, and is extended or contracted according to the 
season. 
_. And, finally, as a close to this brief introduction, 
; it may truly be said that of all the higher, warm-blooded 
organisms, there are none so tenacious of life as the 
Turtle. Injuries that would be instantly fatal to fish 
_ ever leave the Turtle apparently undisturbed, his 
_ power of keeping death at bay being nothing short of 
a marvellous. Also, it is a matter for very great wonder 
how closely he is allied to the tortoises of the land, 
i: leading lives totally different to his, yet in all but a 
few minor details precisely the same in structure. 
_ However, we must leave generalities and come to 
_ particular instances. There are two varieties of Turtle 
_ which furnish us with our most interesting examples, 
_ and it is with one of these that I wish now to deal, the 
. Spharga coriacea, a common ocean Turtle frequenting 
the North Atlantic and Pacific, even as far north 
4 occasionally as the coast of Britain, and attaining a 
"weight of one thousand pounds. A pair of them lay 
__ basking in the blazing sunshine of the northern tropic, 
_ nearly midway between Africa and America. Their 
_ broad carapaces shone in the sun’s glare like burnished 
_ gold, and occasionally they lifted their heads out of 
_ the sea and gazed around as if in search of something. 
Ws But the fact is that they were ill at ease. 
4 The female felt the need laid upon her of making for 
>a familiar spot she knew of to ease herself of that load 
of eggs she carried, and the male, while hating to part 
_ with her, felt an almost equally strong desire to remain 
ni where he was. Such food as he needed was abundant, 
1 passing ships were few, and they were the only things 
he felt any fear of, so with the usual selfishness of the 
male he found a grievance in that his partner must 
ie leave him. Their communication of ideas and views 


i 7. 
1S 


116 The Turtle 


lasted all night, though to the human eye they were just 
a pair of sluggish Turtle lying side by side in profoundest 
silence, and without a movement, save that imparted 
to them by the tiny wavelets of that quiet sea. As the 
dawn broke she turned her head westward as if by some 
irresistible impulse, her four broad flippers swayed with 
a rhythmical motion, and she darted forward, trans- 
formed instantly from an image of slothful ease into an 
embodiment of superabundant energy, cleaving the 
blue waves at the rate of about eighteen miles an hour. 
No one who has not seen the Turtle in a hurry can 
possibly understand how so apparently clumsy a 
creature can cleave the waves at such arate. Itisa 
revelation of the methods of Mother Nature. 

But she is gone, and Mr. Spharga remains basking 
alone. We can only guess at his feelings at being thus 
deserted, knowing nothing of the imperative maternal 
claims swaying the movements of his spouse. Hour 
after hour passes, and still he lies motionless, his 
back just awash, and his head sunk beneath the sur- 
face, his eyes closed, and his four broad paddles 
hanging down motionless, 

‘Captain James, there’s a fine Turtle asleep just a 
little on the port bow. We’re hardly movin,’ don’t 
you think we might lower a boat and see if we can’t get 
him? I know just the trick of it. I’ve harpooned lots 
of ’em in the South Pacific when I was whalin’ there.’ 

* All right, Mr. Smith ; go ahead and wish you luck.’ — 

The fine old barque is rounded to (there’s hardly — 
enough wind to do it) and the brisk young second mate, _ 
infecting the members of his watch with his own en- — 
thusiasm, gets the boat in the water in about ten — 
minutes. He takes the harpoon which he has properly 
bridled long ago and whispers instructions to his crew 
how to paddle quietly and obey the wave of his hand. 


HARPOONING A SLEEPING TURTLE, 


[To face p. 117. 


Homeward Bound 117 


They creep up behind the dozing, listless, and deserted 
Spharga, the second mate rises stiffly to his feet, raises 
his iron and crash! it has pierced calipee and calipash, 
nor can any struggling on the part of the impaled one 
release him from that terrible barb. A considerable 
wrestling ensues before the massive prize can be hoisted 
into the boat, but it is effected without a capsize, and 
presently, flushed with his triumph, Mr. Smith reports 
himself to his skipper and the treasure is handed over to 
the cook. 

Meanwhile the fleeing spouse is making record time 
towards her objective. Swimming just beneath the 
surface she makes no ripple above, only a broad band 
of light marks her passage, andall the hungry sea-people, 
attracted by the glare, make respectful way for her. 
They are ravenous, but she is invulnerable. The 
broad fans of her paddles beat upon the sea with a 
regularity akin to that of the propeller of a steamship, 
and apparently as untiringly, until on the second morn- 
ing she reaches the shining beach on one of the Grena- 
dines which she has all along been aiming at, guided by 
that mysterious homing instinct of which mere humans 
knownothing. Atinysurf curdlesround thesnow-white 
sand, a golden globe hangs in the sapphire sky, when 
alone, and amid a perfect silence the great Turtle drags 
herself cumbrously up just beyond high-water mark. 

This is one of the secret places of the Almighty. 
Far from all the iniquities of man’s devising, here is 
only beauty and peace as at the dawning of creation 
when first the new-made earth arose from the enlight- 
ened sea. Only a few timorous little birds watched the 
upward progress of the Turtle, and expressed their 
disapproval of her intrusion in quavering notes hardly 
audible. Suddenly stopping, she changed from a 
lethargic weariful attitude to one of furious activity. 


118 The Turtle 


The four flippers flmg themselves as they did on the 
passage, the sand flies around in a dense shower, almost 
like a fog, until the central toiler is hidden from view. 
When at last the smother subsides she is down in a pit 
of her own digging and the work of egg-laying has begun. 
It lasts for two days, and then carefully clambering out 
of that sandy hole where snugly lie one hundred and 
fifty round white eggs, the weary mother devotes her 
remaining energies to filling in the pit, burying her 
treasures beneath a foot of loose sand. This completed 
she lumbers painfully down to the sea and launches 
herself into sublime peace on the bosom of the universal 
mother, her task well done, her rest well won. 
Day by day the great sun sheds his life-giving beams 
upon that spot where, covered in beneath undistinguish- 
able sand, lie the family of the Turtle. Does she wonder 
what has become of them? Do the fish who shed their 
roe in uncountable millions ever feel a pang of maternal 
care? Who can tell? The mystery of motherhood 
is so profound that one does not care to speculate. 
For instance, I have a hen who has just hatched a brood 
of ducklings. As best I can I have isolated her in a 
spacious wire-fenced run from the many enterprising 
chicks which are running loosely, about a hundred of 
them. In spite of all my care these chicks do get in 
with the ducklings and the mother-hen, generous 
creature, forbids them not, allows them to share her 
food, and when I drive them out, sets up an outcry as if 
they were her very own. But one day last week one of 
the ducklings got out, how, I cannot imagine. I went 
at once to put it back, but, oh, the agony of the parent- 
hen! With widespread wings and gaping mouth she 
hurled herself at the wire fencing where I was picking up 
the squeaking flat-footed alien she had been cajoled 
into nursing. Had she been free, I know she would 


The Beginnings of Turtle 119 


_ ve flung herself upon me with heroic carelessness as 
a to the result. And the youngster was not merely not 
_ her own, but belonged to a totally different species ! 
, the wondrous mystery of motherhood! Who dare 
attempt to define its limitations ? 
_ Many days the sun shines upon that patch of sand, 
_ until one morning there is a series of shiny upheavals, 
"little cones erected on the smooth surface. And 
a i. there emerges from the broken-up level a tiny 
_ black Turtle about an inch across. Perfect in every 
_ detail to the eye, but if you handled him you would find 
his shell quite soft. With amazing swiftness and 
guided by God-given instinct he scuttles down to the 


| q sea. A gentle wavelet greets him, lifts him to its bosom 


and he is launched. No weight of family ties oppresses 


: = him, he does not know his brothers and sisters swarming 
after him along the same road, but he does know what 


j his first duty is—to seek adequate shelter. In his little 
_ brain there is implanted a streak of caution, based upon 


| the fact that up till a certain period his protecting 


armour is soft, no defence against hungry fish. What 


| F then is he to do in order to live? He has no one to 
"teach him, no parents to guide. Here instinct, that 
"amazing principle which I prefer to consider the guid- 


ance of an omnipresent God in all His creatures, comes 
into play. Closely clustered around these shores the 
_ gulf-weed (Fucus natans) grows in tropical profusion, 
holding within its branching fronds an astounding 
abundance of marine life. And our little Turtle, feeling 


im. his defencelessness, hies him into the heart of one of 
these weed masses, being presently joined by some of 


1 oe his relatives whose instincts have led them close after 
him! 

_ _—Here for a blissful season the baby Turtles, all un- 
~ tended save by the all-knowing Intelligence, gather 


120 The Turtle 


and grow. Here they feed unmolested, and know that 
their armour is hardening apace. Outside the little 
patch of weed-enclosed sea they know that there is a 
horde of hungry monsters waiting for them. But they 
care not. Never until fully protected by their natural 
armour do they knowingly leave those cheerful foodful 
precincts. Yet it is true that occasionally straying 
too near the thin edges of the submarine forest, a baby 
Turtle does get gobbled up by a hungry fish. And why 
not? Paucity of imaginative power alone prevents 
me from depicting the reign of terror inaugurated in 
that scanty weed-space among its smaller denizens. 
How can we live, I can imagine them crying, when deep 
down in our most cherished fastnesses come these black 
ravenous interlopers devouring us ? 

Here we must pause a moment to remember that 
in the sea the interdependence is absolute, direct. 
Every creature lives upon some other creature below 
him (above in some few cases as yet but vaguely 
determined), and we are horrified to see the incessant 
warfare that is waged. But, to use an_ historic 
phrase, ‘ let us clear our minds of cant.’ Is not this 
just as much a feature of the land as of the sea? Do 
not all living things of food value compulsorily contri- 
bute their bodies to our upkeep ? Excepting of course 
the vegetarian members of society, who prefer to take 
their animal food-contribution at second hand. But 
we stray from our Turtle. Presently he finds out that 
his carapace is hard, and constitutes a perfect shelter 
against all enemies, save those whose mouths are large 
enough to take him in entire. And so ere long he bids 
good-bye to the little weed-patch which has sheltered 
him so long, and starts upon his voyage of life over the 
trackless ocean. 

Now it does not appear with any degree of accuracy 


a: 24. 


Mysteries of Growth 12! 


what the Turtle, the Edible Turtle, lives upon during 
his adolescence. There be Turtle who are known to 
live upon strange foods, but in every case they are a 
sort of compromise between Turtle and tortoise, or even 
Turtle, tortoise, and lizard. Of these are the Emysaura 
serpentina, dwelling in and around Oriental lakes and 
rivers, and living indiscriminately upon small fish, 
reptiles, and even small birds. The Gymnopus of 
African rivers feeds, dear creature, upon young croco- 
diles, and evolves from that uncanny diet most delicate 
flesh, which, albeit it is strongly flavoured with musk, 
is most highly prized. But the Thalassians, or true 
Sea Turtles, may eat fish alive or dead, or they may eat 
certain kinds of weed ; all we can say is, that we do not 
know what they eat nor how long they can fast, except 
that from the time a Turtle has been ‘ turned,’ say, on a 
Jamaican beach until it has been converted into soup 


. for a Lord Mayor’s banquet in London, it eats nothing, 


and does not seem any the poorer for it. 

Being of a lethargic habit, of course there is not 
much waste of tissue. Having assisted at the butchery 
of many Turtles just from the sea, and examined, as 
was always my wont, the contents of their stomachs, 
I have never found anything identifiable therein, ex- 
cept a few stones and cuttle-fish beaks, which latter 
looks as if the Turtle, like nearly all other sea fish and 
mammals, eats cuttle, but is not proof positive. And, 
beside, the squid is so plentiful in some weed-covered 
spots of ocean, that if the Turtle grazed upon the weed 
he could not help eating many cuttles at the same 
time. 

But, whatever our young friend eats, and wherever 
he eats it, one fact emerges; it agrees with him im- 
mensely. He grows apace, his horny covering growing, 
too, since he does not cast it like the crustacea : he leads 


122 . The Turtle 


an exceedingly pleasant life, basking in the tropical 
sun, or cruising leisurely in the cool depths free from 
all danger, when once he has attained a weight of about 
five-and-twenty pounds, which is within the first year 
usually. After, no fish or mammal, however ravenous, 
however well armed with teeth, interferes with the 
Turtle; he is the chartered libertine of the ocean. 
When once he has withdrawn his head from its position 
of outlook into the folds of his neck between the two 
shells, intending devourers may struggle in vain to 
make an impression upon him, but will always fail. 
Now, this being the case, and considering the fecun- 
dity of the Turtle (I counted over eight hundred eggs 
once in the ovary of a Turtle turned by us in the Gulf 
of Mexico), it seems strange at first sight that they are 
not almost as plentiful as cod. So I believe they would 
be, but for the fact that they lay their eggs where they 
do, covered with a comparatively thin layer of sand, and 
exposed to the ravages of many creatures, notably rats 
and birds and crabs. Many a rich banquet do these 
burglars have upon the fat mound of eggs deposited 
by Mother Turtle, and it would be unpardonable over- 
sight on their part to leave even one egg. ‘This, of 
course, accounts for a great many. As for the toll that 
man takes, as in the case of nearly all deep-sea fish, it 
may be neglected in taking into account the number 
of Turtle which do not die of old age. It may be taken 
for granted that what man gets of any deep-sea fish, ~ 
by comparison with what is eaten by the sea-people 
themselves, is but as the crumbs of the banquet, the 
skimming of the pot. But, by the operation of Nature’s 
own laws in thinning out any superfluity of any creature 
anywhere, the Turtle is kept from becoming too numer- 
ous, harmless as he is. No one really knows how large 
a Turtle may grow, but certainly there does not appear 


Turtle as Food 123 


to be much, if any, exaggeration attached to the 
statements of Pliny and Strabo, who, describing the 
Chelonophagi of the Red Sea, say that they utilised 
the shells of the Turtles they had eaten as roofs to their 
huts, and boats for their feeble voyages. 

Strange to say, the handsomest Turtle, the Hawk’s- 
bill variety (Chelone imbricata), furnishes the worst 
flesh, being so strongly flavoured with musk as to be 
almost uneatable. This peculiarity would seem ‘to 
point to a diet of squid, since these mollusca are ex- 


- ceedingly musky. But it may not be out of place to 


remark here that Turtle flesh, even of the best sorts 
is not nice. As Sam Weller’s pieman hoarsely whis- 
pered, ‘it’s the seasonin’ as does it.’ A diet of Turtle 
steaks, or of hashed Turtle, or of Turtle soup, au naturel, 
would soon sicken any one but asavage. For sixpence, 
or its equivalent, in most of the West India Island towns 
one can get a heaped plate of Turtle steak, with bread 
or yams or sweet potatoes ad lib. But I never knew 
even a hungry sailor that wanted more than one meal 
a week of it, for all its cheapness. 

The fact is that, in the cult of Turtle soup, we are 
following (a Iong way off, it is true) the example set by 
the Chinese, who love gelatinous soups, and pay fabu- 
lous prices for the nests of the sea swallow, the Holo- 
thuria, or sea-slug, and sharks’ fins, simply because of 
their gelatinous qualities. Yet, strange to say, they 
do not put the same value on the Turtle as we do. 
Turtle are many in number on the Chinese coast, and 
the guileful Chinese fisherman has developed a splendid 
plan for securing them with little trouble to himself. 
He captures some Remorae, those little sharks that are 


4 _ so lazy that they have developed a sucking arrangement 


3 on the top of their heads, whereby they may, and do, 
attach themselves to anything that is likely to float 


124 The Turtle 


them into the vicinity of food to be obtained without 
effort. Carefully he welds a ring round their tails in 
such wise that it cannot be pulled off, and to it he 
attaches a thin, strong line; then, putting out to sea 
with six or seven of his unwilling helpers attached to 
the bottom of his sampan, he gets a good offing, and 
waits patiently for the appearance of a Turtle asleep 
upon the sea. As soon as his keen eyes have detected 
one, he paddles noiselessly in that direction until, 
getting near enough, he ships his paddle and, with a long 
bamboo, pushes off one or two or more of his Remorae. 
Now all he needs to do is to keep them from fastening 
on to the canoe again, for they speedily discover the 
Turtle and attach themselves to him. When they have 
done so, the quaint yellow fisherman in the boat needs 
but to haul in, for you may, by pulling upon a Remorae 
from aft, tear him in two pieces, but you cannot make 
him let go his hold. And so despite his struggles, the 
poor turtle must come, and presently yield himself to 
be made soup of for the delectation of some ‘ number 
one’ mandarin. This is also the method pursued by 
some of the coast tribes of Eastern Africa, whose 
appearance would seem to give the lie to any suggestion 
of such a standard of intelligence as would utilise the 
Remorae in so ingenious a way. 

Our method, if I may call it so, of capturing the 
Turtle is much less elaborate. Certain places are known 
to be favourite haunts of the Turtle for egg-laying 
purposes. Then all that is necessary is some safe 
reservoir where the captured creatures may be kept 
awaiting shipment, and a band of labourers who do not 
object to night-work. When there is a good moon, 
not necessarily full, we hide ourselves in convenient 
quarters adjacent to the beach, and wait more or less 
patiently until we see the first broad back, glistening in 


AWAITING THE TURTLE, 


[To face p. 124. 


Turtle Turning 125 


the moonbeams like a silver shield. emerge from the 
waves. The excitement becomes intense; one feels 
one’s muscles crawling, as it were, so eager are we to 
pounce upon our prey. But we must not, yet. The 
first arrivals have fallen to digging and surrounding 
themselves with a halo of fine sand, and others are 
coming every few minutes, on the same errand bent. 
At last, when the long stretch of beach is fairly covered 
with the toiling Chelones, each in her own pit, labouring 
to make the receptacle sufficiently deep for all the eggs 
she has brought, our chief gives the signal, and, like 
a band of brigands, we all rush forth between the Turtle 
and the sea, and halting one by one at the pits, strive to 
turn the Turtle over by a dexterous twisting of the 
hind flippers. Sometimes, and that not seldom, we 
get hold of a Turtle that it would take three men to 
turn over, and, holding on frantically, we are dragged 
down through the blinding sand to the sea marge, 
where we must let go or be drowned. Presently the 
captured turtle, lying with feebly waving flippers on 
their backs quite helpless, are towed by ropes attached 
to them to our reservoirs or ponds, where they await 
shipment to London. And from thenceforward, until 
the chef draws his knife across their leathery throats, 
the Turtle fasts. Never has he been known to eat in 
captivity. 

One point more in connexion with the Turtle before 
we close this all-too-brief memoir. It is his amazing 
vitality. Most of the deep-sea folk possess this quality 
of tenacious hold on life in a high degree, but none, as 
far as I know, to nearly the same extent as the Turtle. 
Without endorsing any such foolish remark as that 
‘they cannot die until the setting of the sun,’ I can 
truly say that I have seen the flesh cleared out of a 
turtle-shell and hung upon a tree, where for hours the 


126 The Turtle 


quivering, convulsive movement of the muscles went 
on. Not only so, but on one occasion only the head 
and tail were left attached to the shell. Some time 
had elapsed since the meat had been cut out of the 
carapace, and no one could have imagined that any 
life remained in the extremities. But a young Dane, 
noticing that the down-hanging head had its mouth 
wide open, very foolishly inserted two fingers. between 
those horny mandibles. They closed, and our shipmate 
was two fingers short, the edges of the Turtle’s jaws had 
taken them off clean, with only the muscular power 
remaining in the head, . Then another man tried to 
cut the horny tail off, but as soon as his keen blade 
touched it on the underside, it curled up and gripped 
his knife so firmly that it was nearly an hour before 
the blade could be withdrawn. Yes, the vitality of the 
Turtle is unique, and but that it has been so firmly 
established and frequently experimented upon, stories 
of it would have to be listened to with an utter in- 
credulity. Signor Redi once cut a Turtle’s head off, 
and noted that it lived for twenty-three days without 
a head; and another, whose brains he removed, lived 
for six months, apparently unconscious that it had 
suffered any loss. This points. to a very low order of 
being, since such indifference to pain and deprivation 
of members is characteristic of the lowest organisms. 
Yet the turtle is a highiy developed creature. 


CHAPTER XII 
THE CUTTLE-FISH OR SQUID 


E now come to the consideration of one of the 
most widely distributed, most useful, and withal 
most extraordinary of all the denizens of all the 

seas, the curious shell-less mollusc known generally as 
the Squid. For some strange reason, which I do not 
pretend to fathom, an enormous number of otherwise 
_ well-read people profess knowledge of him under the 
name of Octopus. Now it should be known that the Oc- 
topus is a very humble member of this great molluscan 
_ family, never growing very large, and entirely indebted 
for his fame to the splendid but fatally inaccurate 
pen of Victor Hugo in the ‘ Toilers of the Sea.’ If 
high art in fiction be to clothe the utterly impossible 
as well as improbable in such fascinating language 
that the reader shall be crammed for the rest of his 
life with absurdities, then Victor Hugo was indeed 
_. the greatest fictional artist that ever lived. But 
inaccuracy of statement is a peculiarly French cha- 
racteristic, as most dabblers in science know very 
well. However, I do not wish to be ungrateful, and 
I will at once admit that, utterly unreliable as Victor | 
Hugo is in any matter of fact, the fascination of his 
work is its own ample justification. 

The hall-mark of all the Cephalopoda, or head- 
footed ones,’ is hideousness, and their chief character- 
istics, voracity and omnivorousness. To begin with 


127 


ae oe eon ~ aa 
ai iti el a 


> eer 
= ya he 


128 The Cuttle-fish or Squid 


the Octopoda, or eight-footed ones, is to introduce at 
once to the friendly reader’s notice a mollusc he is 
probably well-acquainted with by sight in some 
aquarium, one that he has often shuddered over. In 
truth, even when very small, there is something ghastly 
about the appearance of an Octopus. The sombre 
brown of its body, the pustular skin, the eyes in which 
a whole inferno of hatred of everything living seems 
to be concentrated, the palpitating orifice at the top 
of the head which is the entrance to its body, opening 
now and then sufficiently to show the parrot-like beak 
common to all the race, these are grisly features, but 
the eight arms, writhing, curling, clinging like a 
Medusa’s hair, are the features of the Octopus which 
hold the imagination captive. 

My first experience of the Octopus was in a little 
bay in Stewart Island, New Zealand. A small river 
flowed into this bay, notable for its fine flounders, 
and we (the crew of the ship in which I was then a 
sailor) soon discovered an easy way of catching these 
succulent fish. It was to wade about on the fine sandy 
bed with bare feet, the water being only up to mid- 
thigh, and when you felt the flat body wriggling under 
your soles, tread firmly and stoop, groping in the sand 
until you had your flounder safe between finger and 
thumb, when you could raise him and put him in the 
bag strapped across your shoulders. 

By-and-by we discovered that the nearer the sea 
the finer the flounders, and so one sunny afternoon 
I was wading in the bay near the rivulet’s mouth and 
picking up some fine specimens. Suddenly, I trod 
upon something like a blob of jelly. Fearing a sting, 
for most jelly-fish (Medusae) sting like nettles, I made 
to step off, only to feel both my legs gripped in several 
places by something that clung as if it would eat into 


a» 


AIA 


face p, 129. 


The Horrible Octopus 129 


the flesh. I stooped and felt a long whip-like tentacle 
twisted round my right leg. I tore it off, a feeling of 
nausea making me quite giddy. But no sooner had I 
removed one snaky thing than another held me, and 
another and another. It is true the water was shallow, 
only reaching to my hips, but I began to feel as if I 
must be dragged under, drowned, and devoured by 
this horrible thing, whatever it was. 

Fortunately I retained some presence of mind, 
and drawing my sheath-knife, I reached down cau- 
tiously to where I felt the main body of the thing, and 
avoiding my bare feet I stabbed steadily into the 
central part of the beast, the body, as I supposed. 
And I was quite successful, for presently I felt the clutch 
of the tentacles round my legs relax, I saw the water 
- all distained with something which I then thought 
was blood, but now know as sepia, and I smelt the 
strong odour of stale musk, which all cuttle-fish have 
if you meddle with them. Also I felt strangely sick 
and ill. All a-tremble, at which I felt much ashamed, 
and more so when, on forcing myself to pick up the 
body of the thing, I saw that it was quite insignificant 
in size. Its body proper was not much larger than 
my two fists, while its eight tentacles were about 
twenty inches in length. But the whole creature 
looked so diabolical, an appearance which its colour, 
a light brown splashed with reddish spots, materially 
helped. And I felt quite certain, too, that, had I been 
laid hold of in water out of my depth by one of these 
creatures, only a miracle could have saved me from 
drowning. : 

Fortunately it is not the practice of the Octopus 
to swim about in mid-water, but only to crawl clammily 
about the bottom, dragging itself along by its quivering 
clutching arms, which stick to everything they touch 


9 


130 The Cuttle-fish or Squid 


with a grip that only the tearing off of the sucker will 
release in many cases. Like the sharks, the Octopoda 
are true scavengers, eating anything eatable which 


comes in their way, but unlike the sharks they also 


manage to get a good deal of living food, quite large 
fish being often found in their clutches undergoing 
process of demolition. In common with all the 
mollusca, and more or less with fish generally, their 
digestive powers are amazing, the food, a fish for 
instance a foot long, being digested almost as it descends 
into the maw. They are nearly all stomach and 
tentacles, the other organs being insignificant. But 
again, like all their near and distant relatives, they 
pay a heavy penalty for their inability to grow a back- 
bone, and incidentally for their succulence consequent 
upon their appetite. No food is so much loved by 
all fish of whatever kind in the sea as the flesh of the 
Cephalopoda. Having no bones, and in most cases 
no external armour to protect it, it falls a ready prey 
to fish large enough to withstand the pressure of its 
clutching arms and the onslaught of its tearing beak. 
And although, like fish, it is oviparous and extremely 


prolific, it does not increase in numbers to any extent, | 


from the fondness of other fish for the immature 
Octopod ; and it has, like fish, no idea of maternal 
care. ! 

Now I would gladly, if I could, say a good word 
for the Octopus on my root-principle of justice for 
all. But I admit that it is very difficult. I do not 
see, cannot see, why the Octopus is, except for the 
purpose of providing abundant succulent food for 
shapely fish prowling along the shallow sea-bed. But 
that remark only goes to show the depth of my 
ignorance, common to all of us who study the fauna 
of the sea, of the real conditions of their lives. One 


SS ee 


—— 


Sia ee See eg ee 


ae 


oes ee tee 


The Octopus of Fiction I31 


thing, however, I do know, and that is that the many 
sensational pieces of fiction which have been built up 
Jules Verne and Victor Hugo fashion, are not worth 
wasting thought over. 

For first of all the Octopus does not grow to any 
great size as far as we know, and certainly from the 
fact of its habitat being invariably shallow waters, 
we are in a far better position to know the facts as to 
its limitations of growth than of any other Cephalopod. 
Its limit of size, as far as at present ascertained, is 
body about the size of a football, tentacles four feet 
in length. Quite big enough to drown two or there 
men at once, if only it got the opportunity, but how 
far removed from the fearsome monsters of the French 
novelists. To sum up, the Octopus is like the rest 
of his appalling family, a fellow of whom no one can 
conscientiously say much that is good; but as with 
the alligator, the mosquito, and the louse, since the 
Lord has seen fit to create him and place him in his 
present position, it does not become short-sighted man 
to question that Supreme Wisdom. 

Yet there is one point in the economy of the Octopus 


which we may well admire, the wonderful arrangement 


of sucking discs or acefabulae upon the inside of each 
of his arms. Their number runs into hundreds, and 
each of them is a perfect miniature receiver of an 
air-pump, acting automatically. In one experiment 
I made, I found that a sucker less than half an inch 
across lifted a tin dish weighing over a pound, and held 
it suspended in the air for several minutes. At this 
time the Octopus had been some time out of water, 
and was not far from death, so that his power of suction 
by means of his acetabulae was very much diminished. 
Finally, it may be laid down as a fact that the Octopoda 
do exhibit an intelligence and a ferocity in attack upon 


132 The Cuttle-fish or Squid 


what they regard as a prey or an enemy, that is quite 
disconcerting to observe in an invertebrate. But, 


after all, what do we know of the intelligence of the 


invertebrata ? 

The Octopoda, however, form but one small branch 
of the amazing family of the naked Cephalopods, 
whose home is in the deep sea, and whose breeding- 
place is no one knows where. Their divisions are as 
numerous as the range in their size is wide, and that 
is from the tiny Loligo of a couple of inches in length, 
to the gigantic Cuttle-fish, whose limit of size is un- 
known, but of which specimens have been seen as big 
as an adult sperm whale. Now these Decapods, or 
ten-armed ones, are, though of the same family as the 
Octopods, of widely different habits, and are also widely 
divergent in shape. For instance, the Octopus has 
a body very nearly globular in form, without a sugges- 
tion of taper to it, while all the Decapods have a 
cylindrical body, at the apex of which, or that part 
remote from the head (which yet we can hardly call 
a tail), is a sort of vane like that on a ship’s patent 
log just above the propeller. 

This vane has a definite purpose, now to be ex- 
plained. It is obvious that no creature shaped like 
the Cephalopoda, i.e., with a crown of long arms 
branching out from the top of its head, can ever pro- 
gress with any rapidity frontways, because the arms 
would all spread out fan-wise, and prevent such a 
manoeuvre. But the Squid or Decapod has that 
matter arranged for. Its head wobbles loosely in 
a wide collar of gristle, in one side of which there is an 
orifice from which the creature can eject a jet of water. 
When, therefore, it is necessary for a Cuttle-fish to 
hasten away from the spot where it is, this hydraulic 
jet is put in motion, and the ejected water comes out 


Me 4 _ > - a“ = 
Me ee a eS oe ee = app. 
pr eee ee ek | 


GR a EY ERY 0 RID Se 


eae OME Sd i 


i 
al 


The Use of Squid 133 


with such force as to hurl the creature backward with 
great speed, its ten arms trailing along in a compact 
pointed bundle. Also that jet is stained with sepia, 
so that the enemies following hard after may not be 
able to see whither the chased has gone. Of course this 
method of progression varies in its speed according 
to the size of the creature, the smallest Squid being 
able to leap out of water on to a ship’s deck, where 
every sailor has found them at some time or ai:other 
in low latitudes. The largest ones, that is, those 
upon whom the sperm whale browses, cannot, I should 
say, move very fast ; but then all their movements are 
shrouded in the deepest mystery. 

The range of the Decapods is enormous. They 
are found in some of their varieties in all the seas of 
all His world, and there is no doubt that they form 
the greater part of the food of all the higher vertebrate 
fish. In certain seas it is hardly too much to say the 
water is thick with the smaller kinds, and this is of 
course the case where there are shoals of fish, such as 
cod, tobe fed. For this is the use of the Squid. There 
are few civilised people who care to eat Squid, although 
they are really not bad-tasting, but there are no fish 
that do not love this sapid mollusc, who has no pro- 
tection whatever against their sharp teeth, no speed 
to speak of, and no bones to hinder digestion. 

In dealing with the numbers of the sea-folk, one 
does not dare to compute, one can only deal in vague 
generalities, but I well remember once catching a fish 
we sailors know as a skip-jack, a kind of mackerel 
smaller than a bonito, and averaging four pounds in 
weight. There were many thousands. around the 
ship, all busily leaping after Squid. I baited my hook 
with a piece of white rag and flicked it about from the 
jib-boom until I hooked my fish. Taking him in, I 


134 The Cuttle-fish or Squid 


opened him and found within him twenty-four Squid, 
packed as tightly within his maw as if they had been 
forced down, yet he was ready for just another one, 
or he would not have taken my bait. What countless 
myriads of these small cuttles must be bred then, to 
supply the needs of the millions of hungry fish like my 
skip-jack ! 

On what are all these molluses fed ? Here we must 
leave them, for it is quite impossible to go lower than 
them with any degree of certainty. That they are 
all fed, are all fat and well-liking, is absolutely certain, 
but the character of the individuals upon which they 
feed is just beyond our ken, as is the answer to the 
question of how do they enjoy their lives, being only 
apparently born to be chased and devoured. Yet 
that last is presented by so many other members of 
the animal kingdom that it almost ceases to excite 
our wonder. It must be, we feel, that the absence 
of prevision, of the power of anticipation, except 
instinctively, is the compensating factor in all such 
cases, preventing these myriads from dreading death, 
and making them enjoy present life to the full. More- 
over, lingering death, the slow agony of coming 
dissolution, which humanity is so liable to, is almost 
unknown among these lower intelligences. As a 
rule, their transmutation, via the stomach of some 
higher organism, into another form of being is swift 
and painless, so much so, indeed, as to be almost 
unnoticeable. 

Ascending the scale of the deep-sea Cephalopoda, 
we now come to a very different state of affairs. Not 
only are the individuals larger, but they are better 
armed, of higher intelligence, and fairly well able to 
hold their own against fish’ very much their superiors 
insize. In consequence, they are not nearly so prolific, 


Insatiable Nightmares 135 


although their numbers must be enormous. Some 
of them (I do not quote the appalling nomenclature 
given them by scientific naturalists) are amazingly 
hideous in colour, in outline and disposition of armour 
over their gelatinous bodies. So well are they protected 
that it is exceedingly doubtful whether any animal 
smaller or less well armed than the cachalot can ever 
successfully interfere with them, while it is very certain 
that, in addition to preying upon all or any of their 
own kind inferior to them in size, they are terrible 
enemies to the large fish who chance to stray within 
the gloomy circle where they lie in wait, surrounded 
by sepia-coloured water diffused from the natural 
reservoir of that murky fluid. 

In order that they may more fully and freely carry 
out their nefarious designs, they possess eyes larger 
and more powerful in proportion to their size than 
does any other creature, not excepting insects with 
their thousand-faceted eyes. These great optical 
mirrors, black as an inkpool and lidless, not even a 
nictitating membrane shielding their all-embracing 
glare, are set one on each side of the cylindrical head, 
on which they occupy so much space that their side 
edges nearly touch. And as the head itself is borne 
upon a column of soft, gristly, boneless substance so 
that it can turn every way, with a universal ball-and 
socket-joint movement, it must be impossible for any 
object to escape that devouring purview. 

The adjuncts to the eyes are the restless tentacles, 
a living, palpitating network, never still, always 
quivering like the petals of a sea anemone, which most 
people have watched in an aquarium. Then these 
Cephalopoda have an additional weapon granted them 
in that each one of the curious acetabulae, sucking discs 
or air-pump receivers, whatever we like to call them, 


136 The Cuttle-fish or Squid 


which line the inside of each of the eight tentacula 
and the ends of the two long ones, has a row of claws 
like those of a tiger’s set round its inner edge. And 
when a victim touches one of those tentacles the suckers 
cling and automatically the claws begin to tear, so 
that a speedy journey down the gulf in the centre of 
the group of arms must come as a sweet relief from the 
sensation of being devoured by many mouths at once. 

In the matter of food they are, like most of the 
deep-sea folk, without any vulgar prejudices. What- 
ever they get that is eatable is the thing they want, 
nor do they waste time and trouble in selection. 
Presumably, though the study of these curious creatures 
bristles with difficulty, different species inhabit different 
depths, but nearly all the larger kinds prefer deep 
waters, say one hundred fathoms or so, while the small 
ones like the Octofoda keep near the surface. 

Coming to the largest of all, the gigantic Cuttle- 
fish, several very curious facts present themselves at 
once. The first is that as far back as the day of 
Aristotle, Pliny, and lian, the gigantic Cuttle-fish 
was fairly well known and described. Pliny, indeed, 
tells a story which, knowing what we know of the 
habits of the Cuttle-fish as distinct from the Octopoda, 
savours of the incredible. While he was consul in 
Spain, he says, one of these monsters acquired the 
bad habit of coming ashore by night and plundering 
the salt-fish warehouses. It came once too often, 
and was slain. Being brought under Pliny’s notice 
he conceived a joke. He caused the head to be cut 
off, and a cask of fifteen amphorae capacity was filled 
with it (somewhat larger than a sugar hogshead, we 
must suppose). This he sent to his friend Lucullus 
in Sicily to grace one of his memorable banquets, 
adding that he knew his love for fish. He also adds 


:, + 
Ae 
re 
ye 


Cuttle-fish Yarns 137 


a few details, such as that the arms were thirty feet 
long, and so thick that a man’s arms could hardly 
meet round them at their bases, these arms being 
provided with acetabulae large as basins holding four 
or five gallons. Now, with the sole exception of the 
burglarious habit of this Cuttle-fish, which if true has 
certainly been discontinued by the creature’s descen- 
dants, these details are not very wide of possible and 
probable truth, and indeed, well within the truth as 
regards size of many that have been seen and described 
of late years. 

But coming down to medizval times, such writers 
as Paulinus (who thinks that the great Cuttle must 
be a vast crab), Bartholinus, Athanasius Kircher, 


¢ -Olaus Magnus, and Pontoppidan, Bishop of Bergen, 
_ we find quite a different style of writing, and a steep 


descent into utter inaccuracy. Not being gifted with 
either the literary ability or the judiciaj restraint of 
the pagan writers, these Northern Jittérateurs launched 
into the wildest fables, and supplemented their literary 
fancies by such outrageous caricatures that ordinary 
minds very justly recoiled from them, feeling that 
they could not be true. For instance, Pontoppidan, 
though a bishop, was the author of a monstrous tale 
built up from the simple story of some fishermen, who 
undoubtedly did come across the body of a vast 
Cephalopod in the North Sea, and related their ex- 
periences to him. No doubt they exaggerated, that 
was only natural in them, but Pontoppidan’s story is 
wild as the Avatar of the Fish from the Mahabharata. 

Very briefly his version was this: that a fleet of 
ships while at sea sighted an island where no island 
should be, and determining to explore this strange 
land, anchored their vessels and landed. When 
suddenly, to their horror, there arose around the island 


138 The Cuttle-fish or Squid 


a multitude of serpent-like arms taller than the masts 
of the vessels, which embraced the ships and collected 
the crews until. with a horrible whirling of the whole 
ocean, island and ships and men disappeared for ever. 
And he does not even explain to us whence he derived 
his information. 

This creature is undoubtedly the Kraken of old 
Norse legends, sufficiently awe-inspiring in its supreme 
hideousness and its vast size to excuse the wildest 
tale told by a shuddering eye-witness of its prowess 
in those far-off days; yes, even sufficiently terrible 
to account for its being considered the originating 
cause of the maelstrom off the Lofoden Islands, around 
which so many hair-raising tales have clustered. — 

But what does seem incomprehensible to me is 
that, after so many indisputable glimpses of the great 
Cuttle-fish during those early years, the exaggerations 
of the historians should have been able to cause such 
a revulsion of feeling as to make people disbelieve 
in the existence of such a creature at all. Yet that 
is exactly what happened, in spite of the fact that very 
many authentic records exist of appearances of the 
creature. It is true that at the same time many fables 
were current anent the appearance of the great sea- 
serpent, most of which were doubtless due to hurried 
glimpses of the gigantic Cuttle-fish in his conflict with 
a sperm whale. But why stories of the mythical 
sea-serpent should have been accepted, and accounts 
of the real mollusc have been rejected, it is impossible 
to say. It must, I suppose, remain a mystery. 

An added wonder comes from the fact that the — 
American sperm whale fishery has existed for well over 
a century, and during the whole of that time every — 
officer, to say nothing of the men, must have known of 
the very real existence of the great Squid, since scarcely 


AG 


Squid Superstitions 139 


a sperm whale can be killed without first ejecting from 
his stomach huge fragments of this popularly believed 
by seamen to be the largest of all God’s creatures. 
Not only so, but in every book which has been written 
about the sperm whale fishery some allusion to the 
great Cuttle-fish will surely be found, although it must 
be admitted that so much superstitiously childish 
matter is usually mixed up with the facts as to make 
the latter difficult of belief. For instance, Herman 
Melville’s wonderful Moby Dick, or the White Whale, 
which is, and must remain, the classic upon this subject, 
both from the magic of its style and the accuracy of its 
descriptions, has the following :— 


‘Almost forgetting for the moment all thoughts 
of Moby Dick, we now gazed at the most wondrous 
phenomenon which the secret seas have hitherto 
revealed to mankind. A vast pulpy mass, furlongs (?) 
in length and breadth, of a glancing cream colour, 
lay floating on the water, innumerable long arms 
radiating from its centre, and curling and twisting 
like a nest of anacondas, as if blindly to clutch at 


any object within reach. No perceptible face or front 


did it have; no conceivable token of either sensation 
or instinct, but undulated there on the billows an 
unearthly, formless, chance-like apparition of life. 
As with a low sucking sound it slowly disappeared 
again, Starbuck, still gazing at the agitated waters 
where it had sunk, with a wild voice, exclaimed: 
“ Almost rather had I seen Moby Dick and fought 
him, than to have seen thee, thou white ghost.” 

** What was it, sir?” said Flask. 

** The great live Squid, which, they say, few whale- 
ships ever beheld and returned to their ports to tell 
of it.”? 


140 The Cuttle-fish or Squid — 


Now this excerpt is typical of the way in which 
appearances of the Squid were treated, and may 
possibly account for the scepticism, in an age growing 
with enlightenment, with which such stories were 
received. But why, in the name of patience and 
common-sense, visions of fragments of the animal 
should be regarded as usual and natural, while to 
view the entire beast portended the most awful 
calamities, passes the wit of man to understand. 
Certain it is that many of the old whale-men be- 
lieved the Squid upon which the sperm whale feeds 
to be one unthinkably vast animal sprawling upon 
the sea-bed, and renewing with amazing facility 
and kindliness such portions of his anatomy as the 
hungry whales were continually biting off. But 
probably this is more than enough of such fantastic 
fables. 

The plain facts about the gigantic Squid which 
are well authenticated are few but substantial. First, 
his habitat is certainly within the limit of five hundred 
fathom:’ depth and in places where there is much food 
suitable for him, that is, fish of goodly size and smaller 
members of his own species. And it would seem that 
having found such a spot he is not willing to leave it, 
being, although amazingly strong, of a sluggish, 
lethargic habit. He does not pursue his prey; he 
waits like some unimaginable spider in the centre of 
his web of far reaching tentacles, with his huge eyes 
piercing the surrounding sepia-stained waters until 
a quiver from one of the outlying arms sets the abysmal 
mouth agape, the mighty parrot-like mandibles clashing 
as the struggling victim is conveyed inwards. He has 
no care, no difficulty of providing food. All he needs 
comes to him, and what an all that must be! I have 
myself seen a creature of this species in the act of being 


= he 


Squid Mysteries I41 


devoured by a sperm whale, whose length could not 
have been much less than sixty feet, exclusive of the 
tentacles, and whose girth would be about fifteen or 
twenty feet. The devouring capacity of such a 
creature must be of fabulous dimensions, since, as 
before noted, while all the sea-folk have amazing 
digestive powers, the Cephalopoda are pre-eminent 
in this direction. Their bodies may roughly be de- 
scribed as bags of digestive juices which dissolve the 
food as it comes in, and like the parabolic daughters 
of the horse-leech, the cephalopod’s stomach, that is 
to say, almost his whole body, is ever crying ‘ Give, 

give,’ and never says ‘ Hold, enough.’ 

Since even this vast mollusc’s very existence has 
been strenuously denied up till quite recent years by 
scientific naturalists, it follows that we have but few 
details concerning him. Some things, however, we 
may know by inference, and amongst them are the 
following. The gigantic Cuttle-fish must be very 
prolific. He is the principal food, the main support 
of the sperm whale, and as this vast mammal’s numbers 
are incalculable, and each individual needs, at the 
very lowest computation, a ton of food per day to keep 
him going, the numbers of the mollusca upon which he 
feeds must be proportionate. As to the numbers of 
the sperm whale I may say, in passing, that it has 
several times been my lot to witness an assemblage of 
cachalots, all of the largest size, covering an area of 
ocean as far as the eye could reach from the masthead 
of our ship in every direction. That is to say, we were 
the centre of a circle of vision thirty miles in diameter, 
and wherever the eye rested in that circle it saw sperm 
whales spouting. Only to think of the amount of food 
required for that stupendous host makes the mind 
reel. 


142 The Cuttle-fish or Squid 


Next, he must grow very rapidly. As I have 
before stated, I think, it is the almost invariable habit 
of the sperm whale to eject the contents of his stomach 
just before death. All that I have seen die did so with 
one exception, and that one died so suddenly that he 
did not even go into the usual ‘ flurry,’ or death agony. 
And all the fragments ejected were of enormous size, 
showing conclusively that they had been bitten from 
monstrous Squid. What is more remarkable: is that 
I never saw entire ones vomited up, although I cannot 
but believe that they, the cachalots, must swallow a 
great many of medium size, say from six to ten feet 
long or so, entire. I did once see a fairly comprehensive 
collection of Cuttles and vertebrate fish in the stomach 
of a stranded whale, and I see no reason to suppose 
that there was anything singular about him; but 
with regard to the ejecta from the whale’s stomach 
while dying, in my whole experience it is as I say, 
they were fragments of mollusca of the most heroic 
size. tfeyxeg 

Another fact, and that one of the most curious 
connected with this strange creature, is the scent of 
musk which he exhales. Most of us know that sepia, 
the artist’s sepia, bought in tubes or cakes, is musky 
to the smell, but few connect it with the natural odour 
of the Cuttle-fish. It shares this odour with the 
alligator, musk-rat, and musk-deer, wherein is con- 
cealed another mystery of Nature. But it must be 
admitted, I think, although I do not know what 
perfumers would say on the point, that none of the 
musk obtainable from these animal sources has the 
sweetly delicate scent of the Mimulus moschatus, or 
garden musk, which makes our gardens so fragrant 
after a shower of rain. Such as it is, however, the 
scent of the Cuttle-fish undoubtedly gives its valuable 


, 
i 


med ons WES eS te ac 


i eo 


€ 


Musk and Marriage 143 


quality to that strange substance, ambergris, which 
is secreted by the sperm whale alone. It always 
smells faintly of musk and always has Cuttle-fish 
beaks imbedded in its substance. But its properties, 
apart from those fantastic attributes which Arabian 
superstition has attached to it, are not those of a 
perfume, but of a power that accentuates, heightens 
the quality and pungency of any distillation of perfume 
to which it is added. Surely a strange product of 
such a weird monster brooding in the depths of the 
sea. 
These few facts almost exhaust what we know of 
the gigantic Cuttle-fish. It is credited with other 
qualities, which we need not place too much faith in, 
namely, that it can introduce one of its tentacles into 
its stomach and withdraw from thence any substance 
which is causing it uneasiness ; that it can, if bereft 
of a limb, set to work at once and reproduce the lost 
member; and that when food runs short below it 
can come to the surface, and finding a becalmed ship, 
lay her aboard and collect from her cabin, forecastle, 
and rigging, every member of the crew. Strange 
enough in all conscience, but no stranger, surely, than 
the fact I reserve for the last. The gigantic Cuttle- 
fish has no mate, at least none that he ever knows. 
But at certain seasons he grows an additional tentacle, 
a curious, dwarfed, club-headed thing, which looks 
strangely out of place among the ten ordinary ones. In 
due time this extra tentacle matures. It then detaches 
itself from the crown of its source and floats away. 
In due time it finds the predestined spouse, to which 
it immediately attaches itself. And in this  extra- 
ordinary fashion is the gigantic Cuttle-fish reproduced 
surely the strangest in all natural history and only 
comparable to the grafting of fruit-trees. But the 


144. The Cuttle-fish or Squid 


latter is not nearly so wonderful, seeing that it is 
most carefully carried out by the hand of man and 
with all the resources of his intelligence. 

With this I complete these all-too-brief skit 
of the sea mammals, Sharks and Cuttles. All of 
these creatures are so sufficiently interesting, and have 
so many anecdotes clustering around them, that they 
might well claim a book to themselves. But, in 
pursuance of the original idea of these sketches I have 
sternly resisted the temptation to ‘pad’ them out, 
feeling sure that the scantier the information given 
consistent with interest, the better will it be retained. 
We now come to the fish of the deep sea. I do not 
suggest that the shark, already dealt with, is not a 
fish, but he is a fish in a distinct category by himself. 
I have noted most of his peculiarities, and feel sure 
that my readers will agree with me when I say that 
he must be kept apart from what most of us under- 
stand as fish. Wholesome fish with scales and fins, 
that is; fish that we can all recognise as such, whether 
they swim the deep sea or frequent the rivers and 
ponds. 

Not, be it undertsood, that I would cast any 
reflection upon a fish because he was not beautiful, 
as say a mackerel or a red mullet.. That would be 
unfair, especially as I remember a fish I was once 
acquainted with in Hobson’s Bay, called locally the 
‘flat-head.’ It was simply hideous, and its colour 
that of dark mud. Moreover, the only way to get it 
off a hook without the certainty of getting a poisoned 
wound, that would certainly incapacitate one for a 
week or two, was to fling it down and stick a knife 
through the base of its head, and so, holding it impaled, 
to extract the hook. Yet as food it was in every way 
superb. white and sapid in flesh, and in flavour de- 


RS Ss oe ee 


oe ane 3 


GIANT SQUID AND COMMON LOLIGO. 


[To face p. 144. 


_ Beauty versus Utility 145 


r icious. Some of the most beitigaty beautiful fish 
_ I have ever known have been the most dangerous to 
‘ -man because of their poisonous qualities. And con- 
ig --versely, some of the most ungainly, dull, and quaint- 
looking fish, such as all the flat fish undoubtedly are, 
are the most useful, the most valuable. With fish 
as with us, beauty is but skin deep, and is but little 


4 _ index to the deeper and more lasting qualities. 


10 


CHAPTER XIII 
DEEP-SEA CHIMARAS 


N this chapter it becomes necessary for me to depart 
almost entirely from my usual practice of drawing 
upon personal experience, for very obvious reasons. 

The extraordinary creatures of which I am about to 
write I have called chimeras, since their aspect is quite 
outré and startling, even horrible, enough to justify the 
epithet fully. And, fortunately for the peace of mind 
of sailors, the latter very rarely come in contact with 
them. They have their abode in varying depths of 
the dim and silent sea, and only of comparatively late 
years has any study of them been possible. 

The epoch-making voyage of the ‘ Challenger’ 
furnished much of the material for Dr. Giinther’s 
magnificent work on deep-sea fishes, and since that 
time other nations, notably and principally the Ameri- 
cans, have been carrying on the same deeply interesting 
work. One striking result of oceanic investigation 
has been the establishing as a certainty that fish, highly 
developed and normally organised fish, can and do 
exist at great depths, but what those depths are cannot 
in the nature of things be determined with any accuracy. 
For the net in which these fish are caught is open all 
the time both descending and ascending, and con- 
sequently fish which are well known to be surface — 


dwellers have been drawn up, much distorted, froma 


depth of two thousand fathoms or more. 
146 


Deep-Sea Mystery 147 


Also it follows from the method necessarily employed 
in their capture that great and extraordinary as are the 
varieties of deep-sea fish now known, there must be a 
very great number more who, by reason of their agility 
or their size, have never been, and can hardly be ex- 
pected to be, caught. Still, of shell-fish or slow-moving 
species of shell-less fish a goodly harvest has been 


a gathered from all depths, even to the greatest, so that 


it is now known that in the most profound abysses of 
ocean, such as that vast chasm in the South Pacific on 


_ the north and east of New Zealand, where a measured 


depth of nearly thirty-one thousand feet has been 
plumbed, there is abundant life at the bottom, although 
it is, as far as is kt.own, of a low order. 

In these days of amazing strides in science it is 


extremely risky to prophesy of anything that it can 


never be fully investigated, but if there be one thing of 
which it seems safe to predict that our knowledge has 
almost reached its limit, it is that of life at great sea- 
depths. For one thing, and that an exceedingly im- 
portant one, such investigation can promise no great 
commercial or even scientific gain. Its pursuit can at 
the best be only rewarded by the acquisition of much 
curious, out-of-the-way knowledge of a side of life at 
present involved in deepest mystery. But just because 
it is so mysterious, because the conditions of living at 
those vast depths, under those amazing, almost unthink- 
able pressures, is almost as difficult for our sense- 
perceptions to apprehend as those of life in Jupiter or 
Saturn or the Sun, so ardent seekers after new truth 
will undoubtedly be irresistibly attracted by what I 
should like to call Oceanology, the term Oceanic 
Ichthyology being to my mind far too cumbrous for 
ordinary use. 

It has several times been my privilege (not at all 


148 Deep-Sea Chimeras 


appreciated at the time) to see some very queer fish 
upon the sea-surface in remote parts of the ocean during 
long complete calms. At such times the apparent 
stagnation of the sea (I say apparent, because it is 
impossible for the sea ever to be really stagnant) has 
the strange effect of inducing the denizens of the lower 
strata to come to the surface, although how they 
accommodate themselves to the great changes of pres- 
sure they must experience is a matter quite beyond 
my comprehension. The more so as, when I have been 
fishing at a depth of from four to six hundred feet, 
my victims have invariably come to the surface with 
everted viscera, due, without doubt, to the sudden 
change of pressure upon them. 

But these extraordinary visitors to an upper sphere, 
where they stared glassily at the unfamiliar sunlight, 
and moved sluggishly and aimlessly about as if be- 
wildered, were in no way hampered apparently by the 
loss of any important internal furniture. They were 
never large, and many of them were of a very low order 
of animal, notably one, the only part of which that 
looked complete being its head ; the body, about four 
feet long, ribbon-like and about four inches wide, 
being perfectly transparent, almost impalpably so. 
Through that phantom-like covering one could see 
every detail of the slender vertebre, watch all the 
alimentary processes; indeed, it was as if by some 
curious process of radiography the flesh had disap- 
peared, leaving only the scanty internal details visible. 
Yet the head, as I have hinted, was solid enough, and 
perfect in every detail, having two brilliant eyes and a 
well-furnished mouth of teeth. 

Another strange beast that I managed to capture 
in a draw-bucket, so sluggish was he, has ever been 
present since to my mental vision. Many queer fish 


"as PSs a eet eee 


A Freak Fish 149 


have I seen since then, both in reality and in their 
counterfeit presentments, but none with such a wealth 
of quaint decoration as this. He was about eighteen 
inches long, with an angular head like a gurnard, and a 
body shaped like a haddock. So that in his general 
contour there was nothing particularly strange. But 
his colour was bright green, at least that was the ground, 
so to speak, of his scheme of decoration. Scattered 
about his body were brilliant crimson spots, mostly 
circular and about half-an-inch in diameter. From 
each of these spots there sprouted a tassel of bright 
blue upon a yellow stalk about one inch in length. All 
his fins were also extensively fringed with blue filaments, 
which kept up a perpetual fluttering, however still the 
body might be. His tail was, for his body, enormous, 
being quite as wide as his body was long and also fringed 
profusely with blue. His eyes had no speculation in 
them or decided colour ; in fact they had the appear- 
ance of being boiled. And over each of them protruded 
a yellow horn about three inches long, with a pendant 
tassel of blue on the end of it, which dangled down at the 
angle of a conspicuously large mouth. And on the 
back of the creature rose a brilliant crimson dorsal fin 
running the whole length of the animal, about two 
inches high, and terminating in a long spike running 
forward over his nose. This also had a blue tassel, 
larger than any of the others, dangling from it. The 
whole made up a tout ensemble that I think warrants 
me in giving so full a description of him. 

Yet in spite of the extraordinary development, both 
in shape and colour, the fish as a fish was not queer. 
Prepared for cooking he would have excited no com- 
ment. But that cannot be said of the extraordinary 
creatures captured and described by the members 
of the various expeditions that have been exploring 


150 Deep-Sea Chimeras 


the deep sea during this last quarter of a century. The 
salient note of these chimeras strikes me as being 
paradox. You shall find one fish of normal shape with 
enormous eyes, which will strike one as being indicated 
as necessary at those dim depths. But the next one, 
apparently of the same species as far as outline goes and 
depth of habitat, has but the rudiments of eyes, mere 
pin-points of black on each side of the head. Again, 
two fish are brought up from apparently the same 
depths. One has an enormous body, with corre- 
sponding stomach, and a mouth which will barely admit 
the little finger ; the other has a body like a whip-thong, 
or, say, a small eel, tapering to a vanishing point, and 
a mouth like a pelican’s exactly. One fish will have a 
stomach large enough to contain a fish as big as himself 
(the stomach expanding, of course) in the usual situa- 
tion for that organ ; another has a maw equally large, 
but it is on the back! for all the world like the hump 
of a deformed camel. Other fish have immense tail fins, 
while close relatives have absolutely none, their bodies 
tapering off to nothing, without the vestige of a fin. 

Now I am fully aware that all this sounds like 
the rioting of a luxuriant imagination, but the illustra- 
tions are taken from life, and I do not think they 
will lead any one to believe that I have exaggerated 
at all. And it should also be remembered that those 
specimens that we have, picked up as they have been 
in widely separated areas of ocean and at various 
times, are not likely to be even representative of the 
strange sub-oceanic life. They only afford a glimpse, 
as it were, into this secret realm of Nature where she 
has outdone herself in the fashioning of strange mon- 
sters. One other remark must be made before pro- 
cecding to particularise some individuals; it is con- 
cerning light. 


Self Ifluminators I51 


Most of us know well how in the marvellous economy 
of Nature the sea is illuminated, and that brilliantly 
too, by the presence of myriads of infusoria emitting 
phosphorescence. The slightest agitation in the sea 
causes these marine glow-worms or fire-flies to shed 
all the light they are capable of, and thus the passage 
of one fish is made exceedingly obvious to another, 
who may be pursuing him or desirous of avoiding him. 
But this illumination varies in degree from differing 
causes, and sometimes the sea is almost totally devoid 
of any light. It may be, too, that as this natural 
light is affected in degree by certain causes operating 
near the surface or horizontally, so it is affected by 
vertical position. We do not know. What we do 
know is that many deep-sea fish have, as it were, 
their own electric light installation, row upon row or 
group after group of tiny incandescent lamps, glowing 
and fading at the will of their owner, rendering him 
invisible at will or lighting up the surrounding sea so 
that none of his intended victims may be hidden. 
These tiny glow-lamps are arranged along the sides 
and head of the fish in strangely regular rows or groups, 
each differing species that possess this system of 
self-illumination having them different. 

One thing more. In dealing with these fearsome 
denizens of the vasty deep I must perforce use the 
_no-less appalling nomenclature given them by natu- 
ralists, since other names they have none. For 
this I hope, under the circumstances, I shall be 
forgiven. 

It is a commonplace with naturalists in dealing 
with deep-sea fish that several of their most interesting 
species have come fortuitously to hand. No amount 
of care or scientific appliances could have secured 
them, and but for the accident of their coming to the 


152 Deep-Sea Chimeras 


surface occasionally under the stress of some com- 
pulsory circumstance of which we know nothing, 
we should never have known of their existence. Of 
such is the Regalecus or Oar-fish, so called from the 
fact that it has the two ventral fins, which spring 
from the throat, if you please, just beneath the pectorals, 
enormously elongated, slender and with paddle-shaped 
terminals, as if, indeed, it had developed two oars to 
assist its progress through the water. But its chief 
claim to our notice lies in the fact that it has undoubt- 
edly furnished forth the materials for many a sea- 
serpent story, as will be seen in the chapter on sea- 
serpents. 

It has been found stranded in many places round t 
world, in places as widely separated as England, India, 
and New Zealand. Dr. Giinther records nearly fifty 
instances of its being found and carefully examined, 
so that its existence admits of no doubt. It has been 
found twenty feet in length, by about eighteen inches 
in depth, but very narrow in proportion. And it is 
more than probable that it grows very much longer 
than this in its mysterious haunts in the deep sea. 
It has a large dorsal fin extending the whole length 
of its body, developing at the front end into nine 
spines, from twelve to eighteen inches in length, 
which branch out diagonally forward over the creature’s 
nose, but curve backward towards the tips. Its head 
is insignificant compared with its body, and its curiously 
small mouth, not at all unlike a sturgeon’s, is destitute 
of teeth, showing its absolute harmlessness. 

For some reason difficult to understand it has 
been called by fishermen the King of the Herrings. 
Perhaps they connect its appearance with large catches 
of that useful fish, but one would have thought that 
the title must belong of right to the tarpon, which 


ee - 


ee ee ee ee ee 


on a 


A Possible Sea-Serpent 153 


is a bona fide herring and sometimes scales in the 
vicinity of two hundred pounds. 

It will, I think, be readily understood that a great 
serpentine fish like this, totally unlike any other 
fish with which the ordinary fisherman or saif®r is 
acquainted, appearing with sinuous, stealthy gliding 
along the sea-surface, say in the early twilight of 
morning, might very easily give rise, with a little 
quite excusable exaggeration, to a story of a sea-serpent. 
It will be remembered too, that, in many sea-serpent 
yarns, the monster is represented as having a mane 
and oar-like fins. Here in Regalecus the conditions 
are favourable to such a description—the extraordinary 
dorsal development and the oar-shaped ventrals 
undoubtedly lending themselves to such a conclusion. 

As with the rest of the deep-sea chimeras, nothing 
is or can be known of the habits of the Regalecus. 
We can only say that it has an enormous range of 
habitat, lives in deep water upon small organisms, 
and is sometimes constrained to come to the surface, 
when, if near shore, its feeble powers of locomotion (I 
have omitted to state that the tail fin is entirely 
absent) are not sufficient to enable it to keep off the 
land. In colour the Regalecus is a silvery grey, with 
a few darker spots near the tail. Deep-sea fishes do 
not run to elaborate colourings. 

The next monster down for notice is a very good 
specimen of the deep-sea chimera, Chiasmodon niger. 
It is a veritable nightmare in appearance, being entirely 
black in colour, with a mouth that cleaves the head 
asunder laterally for its whole length, so that vulgarly 
speaking, when its mouth is wide open it has no profile. 
This immense mouth is furnished with equally effective 
teeth, which are not only found in the jaws but on the 
palate also. Its front teeth are hooked and movable, 


154 + Deep-Sea Chimeras 


so that while they may be pushed inward to admit of 
the entrance of prey, they effectually prevent it from 
coming out. This peculiarity is explained by a slight 
examination of the creature’s feeding habits. It can 
and does swallow entire fish actually larger than itself— 
which sounds impossible, but it is not. For the belly 
of this atrocious glutton is like an india-rubber bladder 
which may be expanded amazingly. And consequently 
by dint of perseverance Chiasmodon can and does draw 
himself on to the body of another fish, as it were, until 
the visitor is snugly coiled away in that expanding 
bag, which being transparent, shows plainly from the 
outside the position of its occupant. 

In other respects Chiasmodon is rather an elegant 
fish, quite normally fish-like, which one would hardly 
expect, considering the great depths from which it 
has been brought. The ‘ Challenger’s’ trawl brought 
up one in mid-Atlantic from a depth of one thousand 
five hundred fathoms, or nine thousand feet. Another 
specimen was brought up from a depth of three hun- 
dred and twelve fathoms, near’ Madeira. But several 
have been found floating upon the sea-surface, having 
succumbed to a very natural disaster considering 
their habit of gorging, namely, they have burst! 
And the tissues becoming inflated with gas have 
rapidly raised the dead mass from the immense depths 
in which it has lived to the revealing glare of day, 
to become the wonder and awe of us beings of the 
surface. This extraordinary creature is one of the 
best known and most fully described of all the abyssal 
fish, as it is certainly one of the most wonderful. 

Two very peculiar little fish next demand notice 
from the fact that, although very similar in size, in 
outline, and in depth of habitat, they have in certain 
respects the most widely marked differences imaginable. 


TE ee eee eS 


Sea Paradoxes 155 


They are black, chubby creatures, with enormous 
mouths compared with their length, which in the 
specimens given is from four to five inches. And they 
are called Rondeletia and Cetomimus. Now Rondeletia 
has an eye, of which the diameter is one-sixth the 
length of the head, or about twice as large in proportion 
to its size as is the human eye. Cetomimus has an 
eye which is but a point like a pin’s head, its diameter 
being one twenty-third the length of the head, or less 
than the sixteenth of an inch. Rondeletra has no trace 
of a lateral line, that general characteristic of fishes, 
but Cetomimus has double lateral lines, the two parallels 
being joined here and there by bands much like the 
ladder tape of a venetian blind. The depths from 
which these strange little fish have been taken vary 
from one thousand to one thousand five hundred 
fathoms. 

As an instance of the diversity obtaining between 
deep-sea fish, scarcely any specimens could be found 
more appropriate than Simenchelys and Eurypharynx, 
whose amazing names are really justified by the 
queerness of the fish. Simenchelys abides anywhere 
from one to five hundred fathoms down. He is black, 
a dirty black, as are most of the deep-dwelling fish, 
and has a comfortably stout body, much like that of a 
stalwart eel. But his mouth gives great occasion 
for wonder as to how he can possibly obtain food 
through such a tiny opening. It is the most insignifi- 
cant orifice imaginable, comparable only (and pro- 
portionately) to a hole made in the end of a sausage 
with a flat skewer. But presently it is found that 
this queer fish is really a sort of gigantic leech. He 
attaches himself to the bodies of the larger, fleshier 
fish, such as the halibut, and by sheer force of suction 
and boring withal works his ravenous way right into 


156 Deep-Sea Chimzras 


their bodies, at what misery to his involuntary hosts 
can only be imagined. 

It is curious and instructive to compare him with 
Eurypharynx, well surnamed Pelicanoides, who, with 
a body like the thong of a stock-whip, has a head about 
thrice its body’s bulk, and jaws opening exactly like 
the mandibles of a pelican. This amazing mouth 
splits the big head right in two lengthways, and the 
eyes are situated right at the end of the upper jaw, 
looking indeed like tiny nostrils, for they are mere 
points. Yet for all its fearsome appearance this is 
evidently one of the most harmless of fish. It appears 
to live upon the tiniest marine organisms, which in 
some unexplainable way it collects in its chasm of a 
mouth from the surrounding sea. It has no teeth, a 
tail tapering off like the lash of a whip, and for all 
sign of fins a series of spines protruding from its back 
and belly without any membranes between them. 

A deep-water fish akin to Chiasmodon, and found 
at a depth of nine hundred fathoms, has an even wider 
mouth, but no teeth in the lower jaw. Its only fins 
are a pair of rudimentary pectorals with the gill-slits 
behind them. About fourteen inches of its body is 
mainly stomach, through the walls of which transparent 
organ may be seen calmly reposing the body of a 
large fish which has been induced to take up its per- 
manent abode there. But the rest of the body, four 
feet or so, is like a whip-lash. In the specimen before 
me there appears to be one fish going ahead and another 
going astern, two heads on the same body, for the head 
of the swallowed fish seems about to emerge from the 
rear of the stomach and swim away. Itis a very quaint 
beast indeed, and rejoices or suffers under the euphoni- 
ous epithet of Saccopharynx flagellum. 

Alepisaurus ferox is the name given to a fish that 


A Swift Glutton 157 


at first sight is not at all unlike the gigantic mackerel 
called the sword-fish. Its body is certainly somewhat 
slenderer, and it has no sword protruding from its 
upper jaw, but in contour of body, arrangement of 
fins, and especially the huge sail-like dorsal, it is very 
similar. This last extraordinary member is like the 
upper third of a circle, cut off horizontally. In the 
centre it is twice as high as the body is wide, and its 
limits fore and aft are from the neck to a few inches 
forward of the tail. Its head is ferocious-looking 
enough to justify its Latin title, even if its fierce 
voracity were not known by the contents of its stomach, 
one having been found with twenty-seven specimens 
of the spiny lump-fish within its maw. It has not 
many teeth, but they are large and fang-like, also they 
point backwards into the mouth, obviously to prevent 
the wriggling outwards of living prey. Like several 
other predatory fish whose attacks are characterised 
by swift directness, this creature has the lower jaw 
longer than the upper, reminding one strongly of the 
pike. Altogether A. ferox is an elegant warlike-looking 
fish, whose appearance is not at all outré, even though 
it does frequent great depths. 

Its range is very great, specimens having been found 
in the North-Western Atlantic, in Australian seas, 
and in the Northern Pacific. But this may safely 
be predicated of nearly all deep-sea fishes, the tempera- 
ture below a thousand feet being everywhere the same, 
except where submarine geysers send their boiling 
waters up into the superincumbent ocean. And as 
the composition of the ocean waters is practically 
the same everywhere, it may be reasonably inferred 
that denizens of waters below the fixed temperature 
line will be found all the watery world over wherever 
the ocean is deep enough, which, indeed, has so far 


158 Deep-Sea Chimeras 


proved to be the fact wherever the number of in- 
dividuals caught admits of distinction of habitat. 
The chief wonder about this fish, however, is its 
extreme fragility. It is so brittle that handling it is 
almost an impossibility without breaking it. It is 
quite impossible to preserve an entire specimen 
without some portion of its fins being damaged, and 
should it be let fall it would shiver like glass. Dr. 
Giinther says that ‘ this is a condition consequent upon 
their withdrawal from the pressure of the water to 
which they are exposed in the depths where they 
dwell. When within the limits of their natural haunts 
the osseous, muscular, and fibrous parts of the body 
will have that solidity which is required for the rapid 
and powerful movements of a predatory fish.’ This 
is indeed a curious state of things, that a creature 
too fragile to endure handling at the surface can 
indulge in fierce, relentless warfare in those awful 
depths, where pressures are so great as to force water 
through the pores of cast steel. But there is no doubt 
about the fact, for some of the lightest shells known, 
a species of Janthina, more like a soap-bubble than 
anything stronger, have been dredged up from enormous 
depths, and, lying upon the laboratory table, an 
incautious breath has shattered them. 
I judge from this peculiarity on the part of deep-sea 
fish that a curious fish, often found after the cold 
weather lying upon the beaches in various parts of 
New Zealand, must be a deep-sea fish. It is locally 
called a Frost-fish. It is very long, five feet or so, 
and narrow, only about four inches wide by two inches 
thick. It has a very large mouth and quite insignificant 
fins, tail included, but dorsal fins running the whole 
length of its body. Lying upon the beach in the 
moonlight, it looks like a riband of silver, and running 


rane pp 


A Deep-Sea Beauty 159 


incautiously up to one once, I found to my astonishment 
that as I lifted it by the middle it broke into four 
pieces as if it had been a bar of lightly frozen snow. 
It is a fish much prized by New Zealand folk for the 
table, but it is never caught except when it gets 
stranded as I have described. It is almost if not quite 
identical with Benthodesmus Atlanticus, found in the 
stomach of a halibut caught on the Grand Bank of 
Newfoundland, also in the West Indian Seas, South 
Pacific, and coast of Japan. 

A fish of only quasi deep-sea habits, whésh name, 
bestowed by naturalists, boasts of eleven syllables, 
Lopholatilus chamaeleonticeps, was a quarter of a century 
ago an object of deepest interest and discussion among 
that hardy and most enterprising class, the American 
deep-water fishermen. In 1879 it is recorded that 
the ‘Wm. V. Hutchings,’ while setting trawl-lines 
for cod on Nantucket shoals, caught several hundred 
specimens. It was entirely unlike anything ever 
known in American waters, and as it was large, averag- 
ing three feet long by ten inches high and four inches 
through, it was thought and hoped that a discovery of 
great commercial value had been made. And the 
first thing done was to give it a handy name, without 
regard to any fitness of application. So it was called 
the Tile-fish, from the fourth syllable of its hybrid 
Greco-Latin name Lopholatilus. 

Most unusually, Dr. Goode, who describes it, goes 
into something very like a rapture over it, even to 
the length of using superlatives. In addition to the 
usua) notes upon structure, etc., he says: ‘The 
colours are very beautiful, and in general appearance 
when taken from the water it is one of the loveliest 
fish we have ever seen, no exception being made in 
favour of the brilliant parrot-fish or angel-fish of the 


- 160 Deep-Sea Chimeras 


West Indian coral groves. Back bluish, with a green 


tinge, iridescent, changing through purplish-blue and 
bluish-grey to rosy-white below, and milky-white 
towards the median line of the belly. Head rosy, 
iridescent, with red tints most abundant on the fore- 
head, blue under the eyes, cheeks fawn-coloured. 
Throat and under-side of the head pearly-white, with 
an occasional tint of lemon-yellow, this most pro- 
nounced in front of the ventrals and on the anterior 
portion of ventral fins. Back with numerous macula- 
tions of bright lemon or golden. Anal fin purplish, 
with blue and rose tints, iridescent. Margin of anal 
fin rich purplish-blue, iridescent like the most beautiful 
mother-ot-pearl ; this colour pervading more or less 
the whole fin, which has large yellow maculations. 
The lower border is rose-coloured like the belly, and 
the base of the fin also partakes of this general hue. 
Dashes of milk-white on the base of the anal fin 
between the rays. Pectorals sepia-coloured with rosy 
and purplish iridescence.’ 

There is not really much wonder that the learned 
doctor should go in for word-painting like this, es- 
pecially as the subject of his remarks is beautiful in 
form as well as colour, and nearly all the fishes he had 
hitherto been describing are black, leaden-grey or 
livid toad-belly white. But apart from the splendour 
of this fish, its brief history as one of the American 
food fishes is a marvellous object-lesson in the 
climatic influences affecting fish. In 1879 the first 
catch of a large number was reported as noted 
above, and throughout the years 1880-82 the 
governmental fishery vessels were busy examining 
the sea for the limits of the new (?) fishes’ feeding- 
ground and experimenting on the best way of 
catching them. 


rh 
a 


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[To face sp. 


n: 
Ro 
5 ; : 


A Gigantic Holocaust 101 


But early in 1882 vessels arriving at the North- 
Eastern American ports reported passing large numbers 
‘of dead or dying fish floating over an area of many 


miles, of which the majority were Tile-fish. It very 


soon became apparent that an awful destruction of 
fish had taken place, for vessels reported having sailed 
through floating fish for forty, fifty, and sixty miles. 
And in one case, the schooner ‘ Navarino’ reported 
having sailed for one hundred and fifty miles through 
waters covered from horizon to horizon with dead 


and dying fish. There were no signs of disease on 
the victims, or deadly parasites, and conjecture was 


busy as to the cause of this wholesale destruction of a 


newly discovered and valuable food-fish; whether 


submarine volcanoes, with their concomitants of heat 


- and poisonous gases, or a sudden fall in the temperature, 


was responsible. Finally, through the researches of 
Professor Verrill, it was decided that owing to the 
prevalence of heavy northerly gales and the presence 
of much coast ice in the north, the normally high 
temperature of the Gulf Stream and its vicinity had 
been suddenly lowered, bringing death to countless 


millions of its sensitive inhabitants. And this theory 
pressed for acceptance, as there had been no indications 


of any submarine volcanic disturbances. 

So complete did the destruction of the Tile-fish 
appear to be, that a chapter was devoted to it by 
Mr. Lucas in the Report of the National Museum 
(Washington) for 1889, on ‘ Animals Recently Extinct.’ 
For all attempts made by the Fishery Commission 
vessels to obtain even a single specimen were fruitless. 
But in 1892 several specimens were obtained in its 
old haunts, from a depth of between seventy and 
eighty fathoms of water, thus restoring the Tile-fish 
to its place on the lists of existing fish of the American 


It 


162 Deep-Sea Chimzras 


coasts, and it is hoped that in due time it may once 
more attain to its former abundance. 

In concluding this notice of the Tile-fish, I feel 
that an apology is due to him for classing him at all 
under the heading of chimeras, from which category 
his beauty both of form and colour should certainly 
keep him distinct. The same feeling prevents me from 
going into details concerning the halibut, various sorts 
of flounders and soles, and gurnards also, all of whom 
are found in very deep waters, but are none of them 
chimeras in any sense. It seems a pity that, now 
the narrow seas have been so well fished for soles and 
flat-fish generally that the price of them is becoming 
prohibitive, there could not be devised some means 
for fishing those greater depths, in which it seems 
fairly certain huge supplies of them are to be found, 
apparently awaiting the coming of usefulness to man- 
kind. 

From the foregoing pages many. very queer fish 
have been excluded because of their trivial size. For 
in tiny creatures both of land and sea we are accus- 
tomed to see strange developments of form and colour, 
and they excite no wonder. If, however, we could 
find a creature as large as a horse developed into the 
similitude of, say, an ant, ora bull into that of a beetle, 
our wonder would be almost beyond bounds. For this 
reason I have not mentioned the marvellous genus 
of fishes in the profundities of ocean who carry their 
own installations of electric light as it were. They 
are truly amazing, yet not more so than the fire-fly 
or the glow-worm, and they are all of insignificant 
size, say from four to six inches long. There is just 
this difficulty though about dealing with them; it 
may very well be that the larger ones are too swift 
and too wary to be taken in the trawls of the fish- 


Little Freaks of Nature 163 


commission vessels. They may grow in those un- 
known depths to a very great size for all we know, 


but we never see them, nor does it appear that we are 
ever likely to. Unless indeed it were found possible 
to use a large form of fish-trap, a wicker or wire con- 
trivance, into which fish of quite large size can squeeze 


their way after the bait it contains but cannot get 


back again. The entrance is set round with long, 
flexible, sharp-pointed wires directed inwards and 
converging to a very small space. The fish, however 


_ sluggish, can easily squeeze through, but if he attempt 
to withdraw, the points of the wires effectually prevent 


him. » 
One small species of fish I feel must not be neglected, 


-for several reasons. I say ‘one species’ although 


the funny creatures have amazingly differing titles. 


But they all look very much alike, are all a kind of 


angler fish, having their mouths apparently cut down- 
ward into the head from the top at the front, and 
possessing a long spine protruding from the back of 
the neck, with a tassel or a bulb depending from the 


end of it, which is either a lure for prey or a sensitive 


organ to warn the owner when buried in the mud, 
its favourite place, of the approach of a victim. The 
type is quite familiar to readers of good Natural 
Histories. 

The special dhitrerericthts of this fish, however, 
are well worth noting. First, the enormous depths 


- at which it lives, a specimen having been brought up 


in the ‘Challenger’ trawl from a depth of nearly 
fifteen thousand feet. And in this case, as Mancalias 
Uranoscopus is essentially a bottom fish, there could 
have been no possibility of it having entered the trawl 
on its way down. It was three and a quarter inches 
long. A larger specimen of a similar fish, though 


164 Deep-Sea Chimeras 


branded with the epithet Corynolophus Retnhardtit, — 


comes from the deeps off the Greenland coast, but is 
a more respectable-looking creature, fourteen inches 
long. 

But Melanocetus Johnsonié is really an object of 
terror, although only four inches in length. When 
closed, its lower jaw is vertical like the others, but 
when open it droops below a right angle—the whole 
front of the fish is, as it were, opened out. And it looks 
exactly as if the back of its head had expanded into 
a belly. But that useful organ, having to contain 
very often a fish much larger than its owner, is a loose 
sac attached by a cord, which floats about and ap- 
parently allows its contents to escape into the body 
as they are needed for its up-keep. Of course its colour 
is a uniform black. 

Liocetus Murrayi is extremely similar to the fore- 
going, or would be if the body, apart from the mouth, 
had not apparently been turned round. Briefly it 
looks as if Melanocetus had its belly on its back and 
Liocetus in its usual position. 

These few selections may briefly serve to indicate 
what manner of monsters abide in that mysterious 
world beneath the waves, a world of darkness and 
uniform cold, but, we also know, a world teeming 


with strange life. It gives only just a subject picked © 


here and there from the enormous mass of matter 
available, but it must be remembered that it really 
is to that matter what the latter is to the creatures 
still roaming ia their sea-solitudes unknown and, save 
for one another, unmolested. 


ether aa) Sh ee ent ae 


Ree ee 


Fs 


* 


CHAPTER XIV 
SEA-SERPENTS 


VERY simple way of dealing with the subject of 
this chapter, and one entirely in accordance with 
my own feelings upon the matter, would be that 


_ said to be adopted by the Irish student who was set 


to write an essay upon snakes in Ireland, and did so in 
the sentence, ‘ There are no snakes in Ireland.’ But 
whatever my ideas in this connexion may be, I find 
it impossible to ignore or set aside contemptuously 
the vast amount of literature upon the subject, much 
of it doubtless written by very well-informed and 
_ entirely honest persons, who were only anxious to 
disseminate the truth concerning sea-serpents. 

It is hardly possible for any sensible person at all 
acquainted with the fauna of the sea and literature 
generally to approach the subject of Sea-serpents 
with an open mind. It is like the matter of ghosts, 
one that is mixed up so much with pure superstition, 


_ personal bias, human weakness of mind and credulity, 


that it seems impossible to get a reasonable account 
_ atall. And this, setting aside entirely the intentionally 
mendacious literature on the subject, stuff written 
falsely from a diseased or riotous imagination with no 
. other object in view than that of creating a sensation, 
not seldom with the full knowledge that there is always 
an immense number of otherwise sane and sensible 


165 


166 Sea-Serpents 


persons, who really believe anything they read in print 
which is not admittedly fiction. 

As an instance in point I may quote an experience 
of my own. Some years ago I wrote a little yarn, 
which was published in the Westminster Gazette, entitled 
‘Up a Waterspout.’ As I had no intention of gulling 
anybody, I purposely wrote in a ridiculously inflated 
style, describing my experiences while being sucked 
up from the sea surface into the clouds and my subse- 
quent sudden descent. It never even occurred to me 
that any one could believe the story, it was so obviously 
absurd. Yet to my intense amazement, when it was 
included in a volume of sketches I afterwards published, 
one critic gravely discussed it as if it were true, and 
descanted upon the unique advantages of such an 
experience. Now the critic may have been joking 
ponderously and with ‘ deefeecalty,, but I do not think | 
he was. 

This, however, only by way of introduction to a 
very difficult subject. Difficult, because it is dis- 
tinctly unpleasant to realise, as one must do who takes 
up the Sea-serpent question, how great is the number 
of people who will, out of sheer wantonness, lie and 
perjure themselves about some perfectly immaterial 
matter like this. Any interest possessed by the Sea- 
serpent, if it exists, can only be either scientific or 
romantic; it has never even been suggested that the 
creature is dangerous or commercially valuable. Yet 
an enormous mass of writing can be collected, written 
by people of almost every European nation, and especi- 
ally by Americans, whose authors have either admitted, 
after the sensation caused by their statements has 
died away, that they were lying for fun, or else all 
trace of them has been lost, they having invented 
names and authorities as well as the serpent. 


J 
F 
is 


‘Evidence’ of Sea-Serpents 167 


Another large amount of printed stuff has been 
contributed by persons urgently in need of something 
to do, who have compiled their amazing stories from 
hearsay. Many of these contributors are clergymen, 
and it is no exaggeration to say that their stories, 
having only some casual remarks of a careless seafarer 
for text, surpass in wildness of elaboration even the 
yarns invented with intent to deceive. 

Then comes a much smaller quantity, the evidence 
of those who have seen something, and earnestly desire 
to record what they have seen truthfully, but from 
inability to describe accurately, or deficient power of 
observation, or imagination heightened by alarm, or 
all these reasons (and more) combined, only succeed 
in misleading. A splendid instance of this is given 
in the report of a Sea-serpent (?) seen off Portland 
Light, New Zealand, on August 1, 1891, from the deck 
of the s.s. ‘ Rotomahana.’ Peter Nelson, a quarter- 
master, says that the head was like that of aneel. It 
rose thirty feet out of water. It had fins about ten 
feet long, situated on either side of the body (which 
bulged about there) twenty feet behind the snout. It 
was the colour of an eel on the back, but the belly and 
fins were pure white. 

I have condensed the very prolix report, but this 
is the substance of it. And I believe that Peter Nelson 
was a perfectly honest and truthful man who described 
as best he could the ‘ breaching’ or uprising half-way 
out of water of a humpbacked whale (Megaptera), an 
exceedingly common sight on that coast. He says 
indeed that it was nothing like a whale, but if his 
description is as accurate as I believe it is, what he 
saw exactly represents the behaviour and appearance 
of a humpback gambolling on the sea-surface as usual. 
Yet because of the lack of previous observation on 


168 Sea-Serpents 


the part of himself and others, this Sea-serpent story 
goes round the world and is published in many news- 
papers. It is also used triumphantly by Professor 
Oudemans, Director of the Royal Zoological Society 
at The Hague, as a convincing proof of the correctness 
of his theory of Sea-serpents. 

There lies before me as I write a portly volume of 
six hundred pages, with many illustrations, compiled — 
with amazing industry and perseverance by this learned 
gentleman, apparently for the sole, and to him sufficient, 
purpose of buttressing his theory as to the nature and > 
character of the Sea-serpent, of whose existence, by 
the way, he has no doubt. Only, the creature he has 
evolved for his own satisfaction from the mass of 
material he has so carefully collected is not a serpent’ 
at all, but an amazingly developed mammal of the sea 
tribe, a Pinniped, to which he boldly assigns a length 
of two hundred and fifty feet. If it were not for the 
many instances given in this volume of the amazing 
crelulity displayed by scientific men when in the- 
presence of some extraordinarily gifted romancer 
(vide the British Association and M. Grien’s stories 
of flying wombats, saw-fish in inland lakes, turtle- 
riding, etc.), I should feel disposed to be quite 
contemptuous about Dr. Oudemans’ ‘ conclusions.’ 
But apart from his scientific credulity, he displays a 
really touching anxiety to extract from the mountain 
of lies, absurdities, and superstitions he has collected 
with so much labour, a sufficient number of grains of 
truth for the putting together of his pet sea monster. 
As to his rejection of other scientific theories of the 
Sea-serpent, I make no account of that. He only 
deals with rival theorists after his kind. It seems to 
be rather a feature with scientific men of a certain 
class to build a theory first, then mould the evidence 


; 
adap om 
mmr : - 


Origin of Sea-Serpent Stories 169 


or suppress it to fit the theory, and ignore utterly any 
other explanation but their own. 

The list of what Dr. Oudemans calls ‘ would-be 
Sea-serpents ’ is a fairly large and comprehensive one. 
Seals, cuttlefish, sharks, porpoises, fossils (Zeuglodon 
and Bastlaurus), and even albacore; the physalis, 
a rorqual, and a supposed marine plesiosaurus are 
among the living (?) creatures, while sea-weed and 
floating tree-trunks are among the inanimate simu- 
lators of the great snake. But he evidently does not 
relish the idea that any of his contributors have called 
upon their imagination to stimulate pen and pencil, 
except where confession of detection has exposed the 
fraud. This may seem harsh, but what else can be 
said of a scientific zoologist of the present day, who 
deliberately quotes Olaus Magnus, Archbishop of 
Upsala, and Pontoppidan, Bishop of Bergen—two 
clerics remarkable for nothing greater than their most 
amazing credulity and riotous imagination ? A quo- 
tation from our author must be given as showing the 
position he takes up with regard to the latter of these 
two ancient fictionists. 

‘We see the Bishop weighing and considering 
whatever he heard, and not accepting everything 
for truth. We think that Pontoppidan is right in 
giving no credit to the narrative that the Sea-serpents 
made themselves guilty of sinking ships and eating 
men. . . . Pontoppidan further tells us that the Sea- 
serpent sometimes encloses ships by laying itself round 
them in a circle, that the fishermen then row over its 
body there where a coil is visible, for when they reach 
the coil it sinks, while the invisible parts rise. Further, 
that the Serpent swims with an incredible velocity, 
and that the fishermen, who are much afraid of it, 
when seeing that it follows them, throw any object, 


170 Sea-Serpents 


for instance a scoop, at it, when the animal generally 
plunges into the deep. But most fishermen are in 
the habit of taking castoreum with them, for the 
Serpent cannot abide the smell of it....’ And in 
his tenth paragraph, trying to answer the question 
why those larger serpents only frequent the northern 
seas, he says: ‘To this question I answer that the 
Creator of all beings disposes of the dwellings of His 
creatures in different places by His wise intentions, 
which are not known to us. Why won’t the reindeer 
thrive anywhere but in the high and cold mountains ? 
Why do the whales frequent only the North Pole ? (!!) 
Why are India and Egypt almost the only countries 
where men have to fear crocodiles? No doubt be- 
cause it pleases the wise Creator!’ Here Pontoppidan 
takes leave of the Sea-serpent, and begins to treat of 
the large snakes mentioned by Plinius and other 
ancient authors, and we too will take leave of our 
honest and trustworthy bishop, who has so often been 
laughed at for what he relates in his chapter on mon- 
sters. And yet two of his monsters, the mermaid 
and the kraken, being unmasked, why cannot his third 
be accounted for ? 

It should not be forgotten that the date of this 
delightful book is 1892! The author quotes, with 
evident approval, Olaus Magnus writing in 1555— 

‘They who, either to trade, or to fish, sail along 
the shores of Norway, relate with concurring evidence 
a truly admirable story, namely, that a very large 
Serpent of a length of upwards of two hundred feet, 
and twenty feet in diameter, lives in rocks and holes 
near the shore of Bergen; it comes out of its caverns 
only on summer nights and in fine weather to devour 
calves, lambs, and hogs, or goes into the sea to eat 
cuttles, lobsters, and all kinds of sea-crabs. It has 


i See 
eee os 


Superstition and Sea-Serpents 171 


a row of hairs of two feet in length hanging from the 
neck, sharp scales of a dark colour, and brilliant flaming 
eyes. It attacks boats and snatches away the men, 
by raising itself high out of water, and devours them ; 
and commonly this does not happen without a terrible 
event in the kingdom, without a change being at hand, 
either that the princes will die or will be banished, or 
that a war will soon break out.’ The only criticism 
of this amazing yarn which the Professor permits 
himself is—‘ We consider its devouring hogs, lambs, 
and calves, and its appearance on summer nights on 
land to take its prey, to be a fable. The eating of 
squids, cuttles, crabs, and lobsters may be a fiction or 
it may have been truly witnessed, the animal chewing 
them with its head above water, as seals and sea-lions 
de (!!), The story of snatching a man away from the 
ships is evidently confounded with another tale.... 
It of course refers to gigantic calamaries which occa- 
sionally attack boats and snatch away one of the 
crew. Its being covered with scales must be fictitious 
too, for they who saw a Sea-serpent at a short distance 
are unanimous in stating that it had no scales, but a 
smooth skin.’ A fine example of the gnat and camel 
parable, surely. 

The list of accounts of the seeing of the Sea-serpent 
fills nine pages and a half of our author’s book, and 
date from 1555 to 1888. Apparently no yarn, how- 
ever wildly absurd, is excluded or refused rank as 
evidence, unless it has been exposed as an indubitable 
fraud. Even then Dr. Oudemans cannot help adopting 
a regretful tone, as if he only wished that the story 
was true, or that it had not been discovered to be false, 
so that he might have the luxury of believing it. But 
of all the amazing stories collected by the learned 
Doctor, none attain such a magnitude as the following. 


172 Sea-Serpents 


In 1845 Dr. Albert C. Koch exhibited a large 
skeleton of a fossil animal under the name of Hydrarchos 
Sillimannt, the latter half of the portentous name being 
in honour of the learned editor of The American Journal 
of Science and Arts, Professor Benjamin Silliman, well 
known for his affectionate regard for the Sea-serpent. 
The remains consisted of a head and vertebral column, 
measuring in all one hundred and fourteen feet, of a 
few ribs attached to the thoracic portion of the spine, 
and some parts of supposed paddles. Of course the 
scientific journals took up the discussion of this won- 
derful discovery with avidity, and.a few months after- 
wards Professor Wyman, in The Proceedings of the 
Boston Society of Natural History, had the courage and 
skill to point out that ‘ these remains never belonged 
to one and the same individual, and that the anatomical 
character of the teeth indicates that they are not those 
of a reptile, but of a warm-blooded mammal.’ In the 
next month’s Proceedings of the same Society, Professor 
Rogers points out that, according to the form and 
structure of some loose bones, the skeleton must be 
of at least two individuals of Basilaurus, a fossil 
monster allied to the seals and whales, which Professor 
Owen termed Zeuglodon. In the next month’s issue 
Dr. Koch informs the public that the bones had been 
found together and were arranged in the precise order 
in which they were discovered. But a Dr. Lister wrote 
to say that he knew that Dr. Koch had dug up the bones 
in different places in Alabama. 

However, the yarn was not killed, hardly scotched, 
and the ‘ fossil Sea-serpent’ still yielded a plentiful 
harvest of dollars. And in The Illustrated London News 
of October 28, 1848, Professor Silliman ventures to 
state, in the hope apparently that the previous con- 
tradictions would be forgotten, * that the spinal column 


ae oa ee oe et 


CSS ar ee 
cee 


Astute American ‘ Professor’ 173 


belongs to the same individual, that the skeleton 
differs, most essentially, from any existing or fossil 
serpent, although it may countenance the popular 
(and I believe well-founded) impression of the existence 
in our seas of huge animals, to which the name of 
Sea-serpent has been attached.’ 

Now the facts of this case undoubtedly were proved 
to be as follows :— 

Dr. Koch was a collector of fossils, but entirely 
unscrupulous in the use he made of them. He was 
a business man first, and a scientist afterwards (a 
long way). Not satisfied with the real scientific value 
and interest of the wonderful collection of American 
fossils he really possessed, he, seeing what a valuable 
show it would make, deliberately faked the said 
serpent out of bones of several Zeuglodon, made a 
head and claws to suit, and then having hitched his 
fraud to Silliman, put it on public exhibition. And 
no doubt his enterprise was considered to be a real 
smart one, an evident token of high business capacity, 
quite unusual in a scientific professor. 

Sober investigators, like Dr. Andrew Wilson, Mr. 
Lee, and Mr. Gosse, all being gifted with sound common- 
sense, as well as having high scientific attainments, 
do not waste time over the many obvious absurdities 
and palpable fabrications which are so plentifully 
quoted in Dr. Oudemans’ book. But they have given 
much time and careful investigation to such stories 
as bore the stamp of truth, in so far that it was manifest 
that the observers had seen something out of the 
common, but had quite naturally in their excitement 
gifted the vision with some extraordinary attributes 
which it never really possessed. 

Of these stories the most interesting is that told 
by the captain and crew of the ‘ Pauline.’ Captain 


174 Sea-Serpents 


Drevar stated that, when in lat. 13° S., long. 35° W., 
they observed three very large sperm whales (I may 
here note, in passing, that I have never yet met with 
a seaman other than a whaleman who knew a sperm 
whale when he saw it, or could distinguish between 
any one whale and another of a different species), 
and one of them was gripped round the body with two 
turns, by what appeared to be a huge serpent. Its 
back was of a darkish brown, and its belly white, 
with an immense head and mouth, the latter always 
open; the head and tail had a length beyond the 
coils of about thirty feet; its girth was about eight 
or nine feet. Using its extremities as levers, the serpent 
whirled its victim round and round for about fifteen 
minutes, and then suddenly dragged the whale down 
to the bottom, head first. The other two whales, 
after attempting to release their companion, swam 
away upon its descent, exhibiting signs of the greatest 
terror. 

On July 13 this or another sea-serpent was again 
seen, about two hundred yards off the stern of the 
vessel, shooting itself along the surface, forty feet 
of its body being out of the water at a time. Again 
on the same day it was seen once more with its body 
standing quite perpendicularly out of the water to a 
height of sixty feet. This time it seemed determined 
to attack the vessel, and the crew and officers armed 
themselves with axes for self-defence. In another 
version of the same story he, the captain, speaks of 
the serpent ‘ looking angrily ’ at the ship. 

Now, eight or nine years ago I wrote a paper for 
Nature on ‘the Sperm Whale and its Food,’ in the 
course of which I described a spectacle I witnessed 
of a huge cachalot devouring a very large cuttle-fish 
or squid upon the sea-surface in the Straits of Malacca. 


ee te Gee on ee eee! Dae ee ae 


ee, 
i 
ie 
a 
wh. 
he 
en 


The ‘ Pauline’ Sea-Serpent 175 


Dr. Andrew Wilson upon reading this story immedi- 
ately remembered the yarn of the captain of the 
* Pauline,’ and very naturally, and I think inevitably, 
knowing the man, came to the conclusion that it was 
based upon a similar sight. The Doctor wrote to me 
asking me for further details, which I gladly supplied, 
and embodied his reflections in his Science Jottings’ 
column in the next issue of The Illustrated London 
News. 

Up to a certain point everything that Captain 
Drevar states, and swears to, is easily explainable, on 
the hypothesis that he saw a sperm whale devouring 


a huge calamary. But then the embellishments 
arrive, several of them not to be ascribed to exaggera- 


tion through nervous excitement, but obviously put 
in to round off and complete a good story. For 
instance, what were the signs of greatest terror ex- 
hibited by the two attendant whales? Certainly 
no whaleman could tell. How could the serpent, even 
assuming it to lie, as the captain does, one hundred 
or one hundred and seventy feet long, raise its body 
perpendicularly out of the water to a height of sixty 
feet ? It was such a pity to spoil a good story by 
trying to improve it in such a foolish way, that even 
Dr. Oudemans feels compelled to take 33} per cent. 
off the sixty feet. 

But before leaving Captain Drevar another example 
of his powers must be given: ‘ The body (of the whale) 
disappeared from our view, going down head foremost 
to the bottom, where no doubt it was gorged at the 
serpent’s leisure ; and that monster of monsters may 


have been many months in a state of coma, digesting 


the huge mouthful.” Oh, Captain Drevar! A huge 
mouthful indeed for a serpent eight or nine feet in 
girth to gorge a whale thirty or forty; for a snake 


170 Sea-Serpents 


of, say, at the outside, twenty tons in weight, to swallow 
a morsel of eighty or one hundred tons! Indeed we 
might well expect him to lie many months in a state 
of coma. In truth, Olaus Magnus or Pontoppidan 
never bettered this yarn, though they were far from 
being amateurs at the task. And it was sworn to. 
There are also the stories of the ministers who saw 
the Sea-serpent in the Sound of Mull and estimated 
its length at sixty feet. They did not expect to be 


believed, and said so, only they felt that any explana- 


tion of what they saw except that it was a great Sea- 
snake was impossible to accept. But the most difficult 
story of all to account for is that told by Captain 
McQuhae of H.M.S. ‘ Dedalus,’ and his officers, which 
in 1848 created so great a sensation in England. Very 
briefly, the story is that, in lat. 24° 44’ S., and long. 9° 
22’ E., an enormous serpent was seen, its head and 
shoulders some four feet out of water, and quite 
sixty feet of its body on the surface. It passed rapidly 
without any undulatory movement, so close to the 
ship that the gallant captain says he could have dis- 
tinguished a man’s features at the distance. It had 
no fins, but something like seaweed washed about its 
back. 

Now it is not fair to suppose that the captain 
and his officers stated anything that they did not 
believe to be true, yet no less an authority than 
Professor Owen in a long letter to The Times of Novem- 
ber 11, 1848, points out that the captain’s observations 
and his conclusions do not fit at all, finally giving 


it as his (the Professor’s) opinion that the thing seen ~ b 


was a great seal or sea elephant ; much to the captain’s 
annoyance, who replies very warmly to the great 


paleontologist’s letter, Another authority gives it. 


as his opinion that the creature was a huge basking 


a ee 


ate 


eee Fo ee ee 


THE ‘DAEDALUS SEA-SERPENT, AND ITS MOST PROBABLE EXPLANATION, 
| \To face p. 176." 


Incredulity of High Authorities 177 


shark, such as another well-authenticated serpent 
stranded at Stronsa and given as sixty to eighty feet 
long was proved to be and reduced in length by about 
one-half. For myself, I believe that the officers of 
the ‘ Dedalus,’ being, like most sailors, very careless 
and casual observers of marine fauna, did see a huge 
sulphur-bottom whale (Balaenoptera sulphureus), which 
is slender, has a comparatively small head, attains 
a maximum length of one hundred and fifty feet, 
and a speed of sixteen knots. 

But any attempt to show that the tellers of some 
Sea-serpent stories were truthful and honest, according 
to their lights, only seems to arouse animosity among 
those curious savants who appear to think life would 
not be worth living without belief in a gigantic snake. 
They will not hear of any natural explanation of 
the strange sights reported by veracious seamen, 
and entirely ignore Professor Owen’s calm dictum, 
that had Sea-serpents of the dimensions so often given 
existed, some remains must have been found, for 
such creatures would be often on the surface to breathe 
and could not fail to have deposited relics of themselves 
on some shore or other. Only one joint of a vertebra 
would have been sufficient, says the Professor, to have 
established the Sea-serpent’s identity scientifically. 
But that illuminating fragment has never been forth- 
coming. 

It has been assumed that the Zeuglodon is not 
extinct, although a recent specimen has never been 
found, and the fossils are found in the tertiary deposits. 
It is also assumed that the creature may be a Plesto- 
saurus, which has survived the lapse of ages in that 
mysterious realm, the depths of the sea. But certainly 
none of the Sea-serpent stories, honestly told, are 
insusceptible of feasible logical explanation by those 


I2 


178 Sea-Serpents lubstoerk 


acquainted with our larger sea mammals and other 
fauna not usually seen. 

Are there then no Sea-serpents ? Cértarity there 
are, very many, and exceedingly dangerous ophidians 
they are, being highly poisonous. The largest of them 
is almost as thick as a man’s leg, and from eight to 
ten feet long. They abound on the Indian coasts, 
and in the Eastern Archipelago I have often seen them 
pursuing their devious way along the calm surface. — 
They all have a flattened end to their tail, instead of — 
its coming to a point, as does that of all the land snakes. — 
I have heard, on good authority, they are responsible 
for the deaths of many Lascars in the country vessels 
of India, climbing up the coir hawsers with which 
the vessels are anchored, through the hawse-pipes 
and biting the sleeping men. 

But these are not the Sea-serpents whose character- 
istics, as seen by latter-day chroniclers, all bear the 
stamp of Olaus Magnus or Pontoppidan. The 
enormous length, serpentine shape, mane of hair, 
side paddles, etc., all bespeak a common origin. Now 
it would ill become any one, least of all those knowing 
something of the fearsome creatures that have of late 
years been found to inhabit the great depths of the sea, 
to say that we shall never find or see any terrific mon- 
ster upheaved from the ocean floor. Only, if such there 
be, it will not be a serpent, or a mammal such as 
Professor Oudemans believes in, a sort of Zeuglodon 
two hundred and fifty feet long. Because these 


creatures are essentially of the surface, they cannot ~ | 
even descend to any great depth, in consequence, | 


first, of the increasing pressure upon their bodies, — 

and next, of their need of air breathed direct from pl 

the atmosphere: 
I firmly believe myself that cuttle-fish lurk in the ; 


4 
5 
F 


Sea-Serpents and Religion 179 


darkling caves of ocean, a sight of which would justify 
any Sea-serpent yarn, however Munchausenlike, and 
I should not like to question the existence of enormous 
individuals of Regalecus or oar-fish, of which Dr. Goode 
says that ‘it seems quite safe to assign to this group 
all the so-called Sea-serpents which have been described 
as swimming rapidly near the surface, with a horse-like 
head raised above the water, surmounted by a mane- 
like crest of red or brown.’ But from a Regalecus 
of twenty feet long to a Sea-serpent capable of carrying 
his head sixty feet out of water is so long a step that 
I do not think we shall ever take it. 

The great difficulty about our acceptance of Sea- 
serpent stories to-day is the aroma of medieval 
superstition which surrounds them. We cannot help 
remembering that there belongs, as of right, to all Sea- 
serpent stories of the Olaus Magnus order, a relation- 
ship to serpent worship, to the hideous old mythologies 
of the past, having, if not their origin, at least their 
early history enveloped in a mist of blood and human 
agonies. We may interest ourselves in serpent lore 
connected with religion as much as we will, and find 
it terribly interesting, if only from the fact that almost 
all early religions have some trace of it. That in the 
case of peoples who knew the sea the fabled Sea-serpent 
should become of vast and awful size and aspect, was 
perhaps only natural, since the connexion of it with 
the sea, itself a place of superhuman dread and 
mystery, became perhaps inevitable. The avatar of 
the fish from the Mahabarata of the Hindus is a 
case in point, elaborated with all the fulness of gro- 
tesque detail that these ancient people love, as well 
as a boundless exaggeration. The puny efforts of 
our romancers must recede into obscurity before the 
tale of a Sea-serpent a million leagues long, and 


180 Sea-Serpents 


with a stupendous horn reaching from its forehead to 
the clouds. . 

There is another thing which does not seem to 
strike believers in Sea-serpent stories, such as the 
learned Professor from whom I have quoted so largely. 
And that is, that of the Sea-serpent so often described, 
which I must call, for want of a better term, the Olaus 
Magnus, or conventional Sea-serpent, no trace has 
ever been supplied to the examination of naturalists. 
Certain remains have been found, as, for instance, 
those of the Animal of Stronsa in Orkney, about which 
so furious a controversy raged nearly a century ago. 
It was discovered in October 1808, on the rocks in 
Rothiesholm Bay; its measurement in length was 
solemnly sworn to by three witnesses as having been 
proved by themselves at fifty-five feet, and anatomical 
details were given at great length to prove that it was 
a veritable Sea-serpent. 

Mr. Everard Home, then the greatest living osteolo- 
gical authority, went to Orkney at once and examined 
the remains in the interest of science. His report 
was clear and distinct enough to satisfy the most 
exact seeker after truth, and considering the status 
of the gentleman making it, who could have no other 
interest in the matter than that of arriving at the facts, 
it should have settled the controversy. He gave his 
evidence unhesitatingly that it was a Squalus maximus, 
or great basking shark, which did not exceed thirty-five 
teet in length, and presented no difficulty even in an 
advanced stage of decomposition in the determination 
of its character, | 

After sufficient time had elapsed the whole question, 
which had been thought to be finally settled, was 
again raised. Mr. Everard Home’s scientific testimony 
was thrown overboard, and the evidence of the illiterate 


z 


RN Be A il ae 


See ay eee 


‘The’ Sea-Serpent Non-Existent 181 


fishermen who had measured the body with a one-foot 
rule, and had made all manner of wild statements 
about it having six legs, both ends alike, etc., etc., 
was reinstated, and gravely discussed de novo by 
quasi-scientific gentlemen who should have known 
better. 

In conclusion, although it is not necessary to give 
a list of all the various appearances which have simu- 
lated the Sea-serpent for excited observers, it may be 
stated with the utmost plainness that none of the 
reports of Sea-serpents made yet have been such as 
would stand a cross-examination without revealing 
their true explanation or their true origin as fiction 
pure and simple. And this may be truly said, without 
in the least denying that the civilised world may one 
day be startled by the appearance of some vast and 
hitherto unknown monster from the depths of the 
ocean. 


CHAPTER XV 
THE ALBACORE 


HE subject of the present chapter is a very king of 
fish. Without controversy, he is the head of the 
vast mackerel family, the Scombridae, of which 

our well-beloved mackerel is perhaps the best-known 
exponent in the whole world. But, perhaps, it would 
be better, seeing how varied are the Albacore’s ad- 
ventures, how vast is his range of habitat, and how 
different are the names by which he is known in vari- 
ous parts of the world, to let him tell his own story, 
after a very brief description of his majesty’s person. 

First, then, imagine if you can, a mackerel who, 
by some extraordinary process of development, has 
attained a length of say six to eight feet. But, in 
doing so, he has not retained that slender elegance of 
outline characteristic of the common mackerel ; he has 
put on a disproportionate girth, so that given a length 
of seven feet he will often be five feet in circumference. 
In colour he is a steely blue with lighter shadings, until 
on part of the belly the colour is almost that of burnished 
silver. His fins, which are almost exactly the same 
shape as in the common mackerel, but proportionately 
larger, are golden in hue, and glitter in the sunshine 
when he is near the surface with an almost intolerable 
brilliancy to the eye. On both sides of the body, 
commencing at the pectoral fins and about midway 
between back and belly, is a wavy line, almost black 


182 


The King Mackerel 183 


for the anterior third of the body, then gradually deve- 
loping into a series of conical horny protuberances, 
as if the fish were developing an armour-plating like 
the sturgeon. All mackerel possess this curious line 
of scaly excrescences, and all mackerel, although not 
absolutely without scales, have very few of them, and 
what they have are covered with a fine, tough, and 
transparent skin. Most of the scales are plated around 
the shoulders of the fish, where, too, the hues are 
deepest. 

The head is of an almost ideal shape for a fish, of 
perfect curves, and with a clean-cut, tightly closing 
mouth, whose bony jaws, apart from the rows of 
needle-sharp teeth, are quite as effective in dealing 
with prey as the snap of a pair of tailor’s shears would 
be, operated with the same force that this vigorous 
fish can exert. The eyes are two splendid orbs, 
averaging two inches in diameter, and so set in the 
head that they give an almost perfect range of vision, 
being also slightly prominent and entirely unshaded 
by lids, brows, or membrane. Their colour I am not 
quite sure of, but to the best of my recollection it is an 
intensely dark blue for the pupil, with a surrounding 
rim of gold. 

The food of the Albacore is living fish of any kind, 
not too large for his devouring, but is principally 
composed of the leaping squid (Loligo) and flying-fish. 
It is in pursuit of these latter that he exhibits that 
amazing agility for which he and the coryphaena are 
famous, an agility almost incredible to witness. I am 
quite unable to assess the rate at which an Albacore 
can travel, but I should certainly say that when I 
have seen him darting along just beneath the surface 
of the sea, following a flying-fish cleaving the air 
overhead at top speed, that it has not been less than 


184 The Albacore 


thirty miles an hour. And that he maintains that 
speed for distances of over a thousand yards broken 
into several different directions, as the flying-fish 
changed its aerial course in order to try and dodge 
its deadly foe. Also, I have repeatedly witnessed 
its dash into a school of its smaller relatives, the skip- 
jack, like a flash from the mouth of a gun, and, zig- 
zagging back and forth so rapidly that the eye could 
scarcely follow it through the bewildered school, leave 
the sea over a large area befouled with blood and 
fragments of mangled fish, which the survivors, imme- 
diately upon their enemy’s departure, bestirred them- 
selves to devour. 

Paucity of food it apparently never suffers or can 
suffer from, its natural prey being so wondrously 
abundant wherever it roams. And in consequence 
a poor, thin, and weak Albacore is never seen. Perhaps 
such an one would be promptly devoured by its ex- 
traordinary ravenous congeners. The strength of the 
Albacore is as amazing as its speed. I have seen a 
strong man’s arms completely paralysed in one minute 
through trying to hold a very small one, only twenty- 
five pounds in weight, with his fingers clutching its 
neck and his thumbs thrust into the gills. The hot, 
black-red blood literally boiled over his hands as the 
dying fish’s vibrations shook him like some great 
galvanic battery. And for hours after he was unable 
to use his arms in any way. 

Its extreme limit of size is, of course, indeterminate, 
but there are fairly authentic records of individuals 
having been taken off Sicily of twelve hundred pounds’ 
weight. In the world-renowned tunny fisheries of 
the Italian and Sicilian coasts, where they are known 
as the Tunny, they are probably found larger than 
anywhere else. As the Tufia, they are well known 


A Great Fighter 185 


on the Californian coast, and afford perhaps the acme 
of angling sport, testing the angler to the extreme 
limit of his endurance. But I never heard of one 
larger than eight hundred pounds’ weight being caught 
there. In the deep sea, as far as my experience and 
information go, they are seldom seen larger than say 
a quarter of a ton, but that is perhaps because the 
largest specimens do not consort with ships as the 
ordinary sized ones do. 

The largest one I ever had intimate acquaintance 
with was in Carlisle Bay, Barbadces, where I was 
fishing for flying-fish in one of the locally owned craft. 
We had been most busily employed baling up the 
swarming Exocetae, and had between two and three 
thousand of them in the boat, when there was a blaze 
as of silver sheet lightning in the water, followed by a 
swiftly passing shadow, and the water was absolutely 
void of fish where a moment before there had been 
millions. The skipper of the boat, knowing well the 
cause of this sudden flight, snatched up a stout line 
that lay ready coiled on the after-thwart, impaled 
a flying-fish on the big hook, and, tossing it overboard, 
gave the boat a sheer off the light air that was just 
ruffling the surface, and we began to gather a little 
way, the line streaming astern. Hardly a minute 
had elapsed before there was a yell from the helms- 
man, and looking aft we saw the line taut as a harp- 
string. The boat began to move astern against the 
wind, and we all tailed on to the line. But as we 
could not get an inch of it, we led it to the bow and 
secured it there, in order that our fish might tow us 
properly. We had no fears for either line or hook. 
So for an hour that big mackerel towed our ten-ton 
sloop whither he would, winding up his tremendous 
exertions by a splendid fighting end in the middle 


186 The Albacore 


of the bay amongst the shipping. We could not 
get him on board, so we secured him by a double 
bight of the line round his tail, and towed him into 
the harbour, where, by the aid of a cargo-crane, we 
landed him on the quay. He scaled four hundred 
and seventy pounds, making a goodly sum for the 
poor fishermen who peddled him round the town on 
a truck. The gallant struggle he made for life and 
liberty has often been recalled to my memory in 
reading angling experiences with the Tufia in California. 
What must be the prowess, endurance, and skill of an 
angler who, in a small boat with one assistant, a slender 
rod and a fine line, can succeed in securing a monster 
of the deep like that. 

To my great chagrin I have never succeeded in 
catching an Albacore. Many times, when fishing 
for bonito from the jib-boom of a ship, I have hooked 
Albacore weighing from forty to over a hundred pounds, 
but never succeeded in pulling them up high enough 
to drop them in the gaping sack. And I was never 
quite sure when I had them on the hook whether I 
would rather get them up or see them drop off, seeing 
what formidable creatures they are to manipulate 
when in their full vigour, even on deck. Astride on 
that slender spar twenty feet out ahead of the ship, I 
had always a feeling that the holding of one would 
most likely result in the swift descent of the pair of 
us into the seething bow-wave ahead of the ship. 
Once I hooked one in almost a flat calm by a 
my hook with a piece of polished tin for a lure from 
the jib-boom. He was so heavy that I could not lift 
him, so I played him until I was quite exhausted, 
and then, bitterly disappointed, had to hand him 
over toothers. He was eventually secured when fagged 
out by a man being lowered over the side and slipping 


TS” Ce AN eee Sa 


A Mighty Traveller 187 


a running bowline over his tail. He weighed one 
hundred and twenty pounds—a mere infant. 

_ The range of the Albacore, Tunny, or Tufia, is 
over all the oceans and seas having access to them 
within the temperate zones. The farthest north that 
I have ever seen one was 40°; but, like the other 
pelagic deep-sea fishes, their range north and south 
within certain limits depends upon the temperature. 
I saw flying-fish in 1902 in 48° N. while cross- 
ing the Atlantic from Liverpool to the Gulf of 
St. Lawrence in August, and was much surprised, 
for I had not hitherto believed it possible for the 
Exocetus to exist so far outside the tropics. Unlike 
the majority of the deep-sea pelagic or surface fishes, 
the Albacore’s places of spawning, for the Atlantic 
at any rate, are very well known. It is in the Eastern 
Mediterranean and the A?gean Sea, for which purpose 
the Albacore migrates thither in countless thousands, 
and by so doing supplies a large proportion of the 
Provencal, Italian, and Sicilian coast population with 
profitable employment and cheap food, while Tunny 
tinned in oil as a luxury of the table is sent to the 
whole of the civilised world at a fairly high price. And 
now, having thus introduced my interesting friend 
collectively, let him tell his life-story as an individual. 

Very lovely and comfortable were the surroundings 
in which I first emerged from the pearly round egg, 
one of many millions deposited in the same area by 
our parents. It was off the northern shore of the rocky 
island of Khelindromi, on the western side of the 
blue Aigean Sea. You know the place, perhaps; 
that is, above water—know it for one of the most 
picturesque spots in the archipelago. But you cannot 
know—you never will know—how exceedingly beau- 
tifal is the scene below, about the bases of those quaint 


188 The Albacore 


rock masses, whose summits are crowned by eyrie- 
like villages, accessible only to goats and island moun- 
taineers, who descend from these amazing fastnesses 
for the fishing with as much caution to-day as they did 
when every village of the kind was a pirate stronghold 
whose denizens preyed upon any neighbour with strict 
impartiality. 

Moreover, you do not, cannot know of the treasures 
lying hid in those dim depths, you can only faintly 
guess. But a thousand years of warfare and piracy 
carried on in the vicinity of the richest and most 
artistic nations of the old world has made almost every 
foot of the sea-bed within a few miles of land a veritable 
storehouse of wonderful wealth in precious metals 
and almost equally precious artistry. Around groups 
of marble and bronze statuary, amid heaps of gold, 
silver, and gems, twine the beautiful red, pink, and 
black coral, palpitate the masses of living sponge, 
at such depths as no diver has yet reached to Torin 
living. 

And amidst all this splendour, on cunning little 
plateaux of silvery sand in level nooks floored with 
powdered lava, in alcoves paved with coral fragments 
ground small by the never-ceasing attrition of the 
waves alone, I and some millions of my fellow Albacores 
were born. I did not then know, as I have learned 
since, that in this spot as in every other where fish are 
hatched, there were hosts of the baser sort of fish, 
yes, even as low as the Medusae, those backboneless 
masses of jelly that can hardly be said to live in the 
sense that we higher organisms do, waiting to devour 
us as soon as we had attained an independent existence, 
all hampered as we were by the sustaining yelk attached 
to our waists during the first two days of our lives. 
We had no protectors; if our parents had been there 


a 
e 
} y 

u 


Early Training 189 


they would have devoured us with as great if not 


greater rapidity than our present foes did; but we 


had one safeguard, had we but known it: our in- 
numerable numbers. It was impossible for the most 


energetic, the most voracious of our enemies to destroy 


us, not merely all but more than half of us, And this 
law, if I may so call it, of superabundant supply, is 
what really prevents the utter annihilation of many 
species in the sea. 

So it came to pass in due time that, evading the 
destroyers in company with some millions of my 
brethren, I grew and waxed strong enough to eat in my 
turn, not only the young of other fish which swarmed 
in our deep retreat, but any of my own family that 
happened to be less agile or weaker than I was. For 
in me, as in my fellows, but one principle, one law 
held sway, and guided as yet all actions. It was to 
live, and in order to live, to eat, never mind who or 
what, so long as it was eatable. Our one aim, our one 
duty, was to grow and get big; we did not know why 
or how, but we obeyed the overmastering law. 

In due time we began to stray farther and farther 
from our birthplace into deeper and deeper water, 
always under the same mysteriously compelling im- 
pulse, until at last, having grown into a sizeable fish 
of about three pounds in weight, I headed a goodly 
company of my fellows in a straight course westward 
out of the Middle sea, nor rested until we found our- 
selves out in the vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. 
How we rejoiced in our new-found freedom from the 
constant terror of enemies! Here they hardly troubled 
us at all, or if they did we felt easily able to elude 
pursuit, being so agile and cunning from our early 
training. Several times, however, I had narrow 
escapes through falling in with adult individuals of 


190 The Albacore 


our own race, who sought to devour us without giving 
us a chance of escape. Many of my fellows who had 
braved the innumerable dangers of infancy with me 
fell victims on these occasions. So we gradually 
separated, some were eaten, more strayed away, 
independently gathering their livelihood from the 
abundant sea, but all who survived were growing with 
astounding rapidity, and preparing to take their place 
in the royal ranks of the great Albacore. 

Could I but detail to you the events of the next 
two years, they would fill a goodly volume of hair- 
breadth escapes and amazing travel. I cannot claim 
to have visited any profound depths, for our people 
are essentially surface-fish and do not descend deeper 
than one hundred fathoms. But within that limit 
I have, I think, explored most of ocean’s fastnesses, 
braved most of the dangers that await our people. 
Many days did I linger about the base of St. Paul’s 
Rocks in the North Atlantic eating my fill continually 
of all species of deep-water fish smaller than myself, 
who were utterly unable to escape the clash of my 
unerring and lethal jaws. Here I learned to avoid 
the fearful toils of the brooding cuttle-fish, having 
torn myself free from the deadly touch of an arm of 
one of these monsters crouching in a darksome cave. 
Here, too, by a turn of my body, almost as swift as 
light, did I avoid the thrust of a giant relative of mine, 
a sword-fish, whose weapon grazed my body along 
its entire length, leaving a wide white weal whereby 
I became known and identified in after years, not 
merely by mine own people but by men. 

But I escaped all these dangers, as did many of 
my fellows born at the same time in the A®gean, and 
ranged the waters of Mid-Atlantic as being in my 
rightful realm, a veritable sovereign of the sea. I 


THE ALBACORES NARROW ESCAPE, 


[To face p. 180. 


Adult Joys IgI 


skirted the vast masses of myriad-tenanted weed that 
go to make up the curious ocean eddy known as the 
Sargasso Sea, and many a quaint fish found its way 
down into my ever-ready stomach as I prowled around 
ready for stragglers, yet not daring to venture too 
far into that dense entanglement, sacred to the up- 
bringing of an incalculable number of young sea crea- 
tures, because of its security against such sturdy 
marauders as I had now become. I learned that ships 
might be safely consorted with, and usefully too, 
because of their pleasant habit of scaring up the smaller 
creatures upon which I loved to feed, but on several 
occasions I very narrowly escaped destruction, by 
missing a lure let down before my dazzled eyes by 
some hungry miscreant on board one of these floating 
things. 

But I shall never forget an experience I had, which 
I think did more to round my girth and stiffen my 
sturdy frame than any other. It was in the North 
Atlantic too, on the south-western verge of the Sar- 
gasso Sea. I had been hungrily pursuing a vast school 
of flying-fish, and occasionally snapping up a straggler 
or two that only served to make my hunger more 
acute, when I suddenly darted into a vast black shadow 
(it was blazing noon), in the cool of which it seemed 
that all the edible fish imaginable were congregated. 
I swam leisurely to and fro, and filled my maw almost 
to bursting, then languidly surveyed my surroundings. 
I found that I was beneath a wooden ship, deserted 
of her crew for long, yet so buoyant by reason of her 
cargo that she could not sink. Upon her sheltering 
planks had clustered an immense mass of sea-growth, 
weed, barnacles, limpets, and so forth, and of course 
these had attracted to themselves, as offering easily 
obtained food, an enormous number of fish, both 


192 The Albacore 


vertebrates and crustacea. These in their turn had 
invited the attendance of larger fish like myself, until 
the whole area of sea around that nearly submerged 
gull was literally alive, and all the population were busy 
feeding upon one another. It was a delightful time 
for me, for I. was very nearly immune from pursuit 
by any of the others, being so large. But I narrowly 
escaped annihilation here one day. Prowling leisurely 
about, sucking in dainty morsels to titillate an already 
overcharged stomach, I saw shining before me a white 
cavern, down which many fish were swimming eagerly 
as if in chase of some prey. I was minded to follow, 
and but that I was lazy with repletion would have 
done so. However, I turned away carelessly, just 
in time to note that the cave turned almost as if upon 
an axis, the entrance closed, and a vast black mass, 
the body of a sperm whale, ascended to the surface. 
A very narrow escape indeed, but one that did not 
affect me at the time any more than it would have 
affected me had I been one of the visitors to that 
cavern. 

Many a ship did I interview on my long cruise in 
the North Atlantic, but to none did I adhere closely, 
for it is not the custom of our people. I loved to follow 
the ships and swim round them, for I saw how they 
stirred up the squid and flying-fish upon which I loved 
to feed, but it was exceedingly seldom that I came 
near enough to one of these floating masses to discern 
its outlines, much less to incur any danger from held- 
out lures. I was not yet old enough to be so venture- 
some. In due time I went round the Cape of Good 
Hope, forgathering as I did so with a multitude of 
queer fish on the great Agulhas Banks. In sooth, 
that was a goodly time. None of those fat cod and 
steinbrass had any fear of me, or seemed to regard 


Tropical Experiences 193 


me as an enemy, the while I scooped them into the 
profound and _ never-to-be-satisfied cavity of my 
stomach. 

_ I was well-minded to make that my home, deeming 
it best in all the seas I had yet visited, but I could 
not endure the cold, the deadly chill that, creeping 
up from southward, seized upon me and made me 
helpless when I would fain have been most helpful 
to myself. So I bade farewell reluctantly to my 
good friends and hosts who had fed me so bountifully 
upon themselves, and made my quiet way northward 
across the Indian Ocean. Ah, that is a pleasantly 
prolific sea! For growing fish like myself there is 
none better, if one does but keep a wary eye lifting for 
the sword-fish and the grampus, who alone of all the 
fishy kind can give such as I am an uneasy moment. 
Many months I lingered in those quiet waters, feeding, 
ever feeding, and growing apace, so that I began to 
wax prideful, and wonder if in all the wide sea there 
was ever seen an Albacore like me. 

Presently I won to the intricacies of the Eastern 
Archipelago, which queerly reminded me of my 
birthplace except for the strange currents that roared 
and eddied round about those clustering isles and reefs. 
But for food! They simply swarmed with all that 
I needed or desired, and I fed me full and grew lazily 
fat, as if in all the seas I alone was being fed, I alone 
had a claim upon the Power whose provision had 
arranged for the sustenance of His humblest creatures. 

Throughout the whole of that vast network of 
reefs, submerged volcanoes, and island bases, I roamed 
with never a care. Always I kept the same watchful 
outlook for mine ancient enemy the sword-fish, whom 
alone, of all the deep-sea folk, I now dreaded ; always 
I bore in mind that to enter any cavern, however 


13 


194 The Albacore 


enticing its opening seemed to be, might very possibly 
mean that out of it I should never come again, since 
it might be the throat of a sperm whale, or it might 
contain in its deep recesses a network of living arms, 
from which I could in no wise escape. And I grew 
so fast, girth and length increased amazingly, and as 
for my strength, I did not know its greatness, except 
that I could, and often did, hurl myself high into the 
sunblaze after a fleeing flying-fish, descending swiftly 
with him between my jaws, full of exultation at my 
own achievement. 

Here I met with almost all that our levels of the 
ocean hold of strange sea monsters, and held my own © 
among them with utmost pride, for I feared none. 
Indeed, I was almost too haughtily careless, for, 
despising the prowling Pristis, or saw-fish, I once 
almost allowed a vast creature, three times larger than 
myself, to rip me asunder from beneath, as, swiftly 
gliding like a black shadow he changed from the dull 
attitude of lethargy he was assuming as I passed him 
so carelessly. Thenceforward I held a strictly wary 
attitude to him and his like until, feeling an irresistible 
call upon me so to do, I left those pleasant food-full 
waters and set out for my long journey across the 
Northern Pacific. I say long to suit your meagre 
comprehension ; to me its length was a mere matter 
of indifference, for the exercise of my powers were 
as spontaneous and natural to me as the gyrations 
of birds in the air above, there being no consciousness — 
of effort. ; 

I would I could recall for you the incidents of that — 
trip from China to California, Tell you of the voyagers 


like myself whom I met and exchanged greetings with | 


in the Middle sea, of the myriad wonders that to me ~ 


became commonplaces, Make you understand the — { 


Pride of Power 195 


all-compelling power that, implanted in me and in those 
I met with in all my journeyings, made us employ 
our vigour in the way we did, and fill ourselves with 
the sheer delight of clean, abounding life. Describe 
to you the splendour of the midnight sea, the brilliantly 
illuminated waters, lit beyond all man’s imaginings, 
and yet ever assuring us that beyond our powers of 
investigation were splendours far greater. Never a 
hungry moment, never one instant when I felt that I 
ought never to have been, as I know you humans do 
feel; ah! how much I have lived! Once I measured 
my speed against a mighty steamship in company 
with many porpoises. I easily outstripped them 
all, easily swam round her as she did her best, and 
when under her bows crossing, was rewarded for my 
magnificent exhibition of strength and endurance by 
just escaping a brutal downward thrust of a weapon 
with fine barbed points. One did plough a deep 
furrow in my side; but I did not mind that ; wounds 
far deeper and more serious are healed at sea, and the 
receiver of them cares not nor bears malicious remem- 
brance of them. 

In due time (what do I know of time divisions 
such as bind you ?) I arrived at Puget Sound. It 
was high summer, and those pellucid waters were full 
of fish. Never before had I tasted the joys of biting 
into the body of a twelve to twenty pound salmon, 
of chasing a school of immature salmon into an estuary, 
where I could devour them at my leisure. I spent 
here a perfectly satisfying holiday, daily adding to 
my girth and other powers. Then I thought I would 
go south, or, rather, the initial impulse was com- 
municated to me by that outside force of which we 
know nothing, but that we all acknowledge its power, 
and I sidled southwards reluctantly. 


196 The Albacore 


That was a premonition of disaster, had I but 
known it, for on the second day of my arrival on the 
Californian coast I was lifting myself lazily, with a 
full stomach, to a passing squid, a tiny creature not 
worth my attention, when I felt a sharp pain shoot 
through my jaw and a slender yet annoying, pull at 
my head. In rage I started seaward, regarding not 
the sting among my teeth; furiously I wondered who 
had dared attempt this outrage upon me. I do not 
care to say how dire was the distress I felt when, 
owing to the skill of the man-thing in the boat, behind 
the rod and at the end of the line that had hooked 
me, I could not get free. I only record that from the 
rising to the setting of the sun that man fought with 
me, and was drawing me so near to his boat that I 
felt almost hopeless of ever seeing blue water again, 
when I made my supreme effort. I dived seaward 
at utmost power, and almost immediately knew that 
I was free. But I bore with me a souvenir of my 
encounter in the shape of a barbed piece of steel 
imbedded in my lower jaw, which galled me .erribly. 
It had struck through a piece of plated bone, and could 
not work out. Still, after awhile it ceased to annoy, 
and I grew quite unmindful of its presence,until at last, 
when it did drop out, I knew not of its going. Is it 
necessary for me to say that I left those inhospitable 
shores in haste? I had no idea that men would hunt 
for me in such a fashion, no prevision of any danger— 
but I must not anticipate. Out on the blue, wide, 
free sea I bore, and, resuming the glad, free life of my 
deep-water fellows, soon forgot my perilous adventure. 

Now, had I realised it, I was beginning a terrific 
journey without any such halt as I had before enjoyed 
in the cool recesses of the East Indian Archipelago. 
The need was laid upon me to go westward, ever 


Homeward Bound 197 


westward and southward, for, although I did not know 
it, my God-given instinct forbade me attempting the 
passage of Cape Horn, where the cold would certainly 
have stricken me dead. But these things being hidden 
from me, I fared leisurely on my way, taking bright 
sea and gem-like clusters of islets in my way as they 
came, like a philosopher. Indeed, I felt myself one 
now. I had seen almost the whole world, and none of 
its wonders had any power to move me. Only, I did 
feel an intense longing for, a mighty drawing to, the 
waters of my birthplace, so very far away. I did not 
in the least know where that birthplace was, but what 
of that ? As the magnet draws the needle, so I was 
being drawn, and though only dimly conscious of it, 
as quite content to be guided. Time did not matter 
—we do not reckon the hours in our beautiful home 
beneath the sea. We are content to fulfil the law of 
our being, without regard to how long or short a time 
it takes—in fact, for us, time has no meaning. We 
live in a timeless state, in what you call Eternity, 
except that we are so frail, so continually passing from 
one shape to another. 

So gradually I worked my way round the watery 
world towards the Cape of Good Hope, quite unmolested 
by anything or anybody, but forgathering on my way 
with many of my congeners, all bound in the same 
direction. And the strange thing about all our journey- 
ings was that none of us knew why we were going— 
we only felt that we must go, and also were sure that 
we should arrive at our destination unless—but then 
we never anticipated any cessation of being, we just 
went on living our life with all our might. Gradually, 
surely, I worked my way round the Cape, wondering 
as much as we can wonder at the numbers of my fellows 
I fell in with. Having led quite a solitary life for so 


198 The Albacore 


many months, it became almost irksome to me to meet 
so many of my kind at one time. And when I found 
the numbers of my friends daily increasing, I felt 
almost a panic fear lest the supply of food should fail 
us. How little, for all my experience, did I yet know 
of ocean’s resources! Presently I found myself 
swimming in the van of quite a large school of huge 
Albacore, making steadily northward up that pleasant 
sea of the south-east trades towards the Line. S 

We overtook a ship—a great white-winged ship 
—whose crew never molested us, and whose passage 
through the quiet waters stirred up for us quite an 
abundance of savoury food, such as squid and flying- 
fish. But she proved a treacherous guide, a dangerous 
friend. We followed her docilely into St. Helena Bay, 
and when we got over the shock of her anchoring, 
played about her as we had done aforetime. Then 
the natives came with spears and hooks and slew 
amongst us to their hearts’ content, as we basked in 
the sun or sought the shade of what we had grown to 
consider our great friend and protector. It was an 
awful massacre, the first I had ever seen of my own 
kind, although I suppose that my inroads upon the 
schools of skip-jack would be looked upon by those 
victims in the same light. But it may well be asked, 
why did we not by a few flashes of our tails speed 
seaward and downward, where nought of man’s 
harmful devising could touch us to do us hurt? I 
do not know ; I can only record facts and say that at 
the onslaught of the fishermen we just rushed aimlessly 
about in the blood-stained water, as do the skip-jack 
or bonito when we suddenly make a raid upon them. 
Were I given to speculation upon any subject, I 
should suppose that it was a providential suspension 
of our usually acute faculties for the benefit of mankind, 


A Great Slaying 199 


who would otherwise have no chance whatever to 
obtain our flesh for food. 

- But when the slaying ceased, and the boats laden 
almost to sinking with dead Albacore had returned 
to harbour, our panic ceased also, and, closing up our 
scattered ranks, we resumed our journey northward. 
The great catch granted to the islanders at St. Helena 
really seemed to have made no perceptible difference 
to our numbers, which, it must be remembered, were 
continually being added to by recruits from all sides. 
So that when we reached Ascension, that lonely rock 
in the middle of the wide Atlantic, whose shelving 
sides beneath the sea swarm with all that an Albacore 
need use, we were an army of great fishes swimming 
in close order covering nearly a square mile, and in 
many places ten fathoms deep. Our descent upon 
Ascension must have caused an awful panic among 
its submarine population, all of whom, with the excep- 
tion of some vast cuttle-fish that inveigled a few of 
our members, paid delicious tribute to us, satisfying 
our hungry needs, as far as they ever are satisfied, in 
a most enjoyable way. 

To say that we swept the rock bases bare would 
be exaggeration, but we certainly did find on the 
second day of our visit that the juicy morsels which 
had been so plentiful were scarce and hard to come 
by. So we simultaneously moved off without any word 
of command, any leader, any directing impulse, save 
the one unerring instinct. And how fully sufficient 
it was! Just after departing, however, we suffered 
considerable diminution of our forces, a really notice- 
able lessening of our vast numbers, compared to which 
the slaying at St. Helena was not worth mention. 
We encountered a vast school of sperm whales whose 
mighty bodies lay end-on to our path, and all their 


200 The Albacore 


cavernous jaws were wide agape. Down into those 
enticing interiors our people plunged eagerly, silently, 
without thought or, had they known it, hope of return. 
As I have already said, I knew those pleasant-looking 
but deadly entrances too well to be taken in by them ; 
so carefully avoiding them I swam on, steadily on, 
through the black ranks of the monsters so busily 
entombing my companions by hundreds. That was 
all any of us needed to do, just to avoid the gaping 
throats, otherwise we were perfectly safe from molesta- 
tion at the mouth of any whale that ever swam. | 

So we fared on, our diminution more than made 
up in a few hours. by the recruits constantly closing 
in upon us from every side, and passed through those 
quiet waters between the Trades in very leisurely 
fashion. For they are very rich in the food we love, 
and we were all singularly voracious even for us. 
Instinct warned us that, where we were going, food 
would be far from plentiful, while duties of reproduction 
would require us to be in the very best of condition. 
So, in spite of the magnetism drawing us ever onward, 
we neglected no opportunities for feeding, and must 
surely, for a short time at least, have rendered the path 
taken by us through the Atlantic almost bare of food 
for the lower members of our family. But that I 
cannot positively say ; I never missed food. Although 
I was always hungry, there always happened to be 
food near my mouth, and the way I continued to put 
on girth and strength was truly wonderful. 

At last we drew near the Straits of Gibraltar, 
millions of us in a compact body, swimming steadily 
forward now, without thought of eating, in a triangle 
some miles in area. No human being knew of our 
coming, because we swam at a depth of ten fathoms 
or thereabouts, nor ever rose to the surface. Our 


TERT ee ee ee 


Our Welcome Home 201 


goal nearly gained, the drawing power over us that 
had so mysteriously brought us from the furthermost 
ends of the earth seemed to have suddenly increased 
its force, accelerated our speed, and overcome our 
desire for food. So we swept up the centre of the great 
Middle sea as far as Pantellaria, when, as if actuated 
by a sudden impulse, the mighty wedge of steadily 
swimming fish parted in two irregular portions, 
each portion immediately closing up its disarranged 
figure into triangular shape again. The lesser triangle 
kept on eastward, bearing over towards the African 
coast, but the larger one swerved sharply to the north- 
ward for the Sicilian shores. 

Again, I cannot tell why no instinct warned us of 
our awful danger ; but I swam, being one of the largest 
of our giant members, at the head of this great body 
until we came right up to the rock bases of Sicily, 
and splitting up into numerous small bodies swarmed 
along the shores of Italy and Sicily, and through the 
Straits of Messina. All had been prepared for our 
visit, although it had been quite unheralded by any 
advanced guards, the humans on land depending 
entirely upon our faithfulness and constant adherence 
to our regular customs. In places to which we had 
always come hitherto, that is, our ancestors, great 
corrals of netting had been prepared with long passages 
into which we must swarm to get to the regular spawn- 
ing-grounds. And many boats full of men lay quietly 
waiting to harass, with shouting and splashing, any 
idea of returning with a rush that we might have. 
In this way an enormous number were captured and 
slain; for once within these barriers of netting, and 
the way out again barred, we were driven farther and 
farther into shallower and narrower places, where 
savage men armed with spears slaughtered our helpless 


202 The Albacore 


members to their full content. And we had come 
all round the world for this! The terrible massacre 
was proceeding at many places with the utmost fury, 
and in mid-sea queerly rigged feluccas were luring 
individuals with huge rods and stout lines ; an easy 


task, for we were all so ravenous that a fluttering piece ~ 3 


of rag was at once mistaken for a flying-fish or big.kose- 
and eagerly snapped at. 

Oh, it was a black and awful time for us, and yet 
in spite of the elaborate preparations made everywhere 
for our capture, and of our utter want of forethought 
or attempt to avoid those deadly shores, it is certain 
that only the mere fringes of our great host were cap- 
tured. But those of us who escaped could claim no 
credit for superior wisdom or greater skill in avoiding 
danger. We survived, because for one thing the sea 
is so wide and so deep, even the Mediterranean, that 
man is closely limited in his powers of destruction, 
and because, there being so many of us, all could not 
get inshore at once to where the traps were laid for 
us. Also, the majority of us were bound farther 
eastward to the Aégean, to those quiet spawning-beds 
where I was born, and where in due time I arrived 
again after visiting all the tropical and temperate 
parts of the oceans of the world down to a depth of 
one hundred fathoms. 

Then commenced the all-important business of our 
visit. The females in long ranks settled down upon 
the pleasant smooth patches of sandy sea-floor in all 
the sheltered nooks So well remembered, and deposited 
with utmost care and regularity their burdens of 
pearly eggs in long, level rows. Behind them swam 
the males, steadily, methodically distributing milt 
and spreading it evenly with quiet wavings of broad 
tails, at the same time keeping a wary eye open for 


PLACE OF THE ALBACORE, 
[To face p. 189. 


Unnatural Appetites 203 


the possible advent of marauders. But no sooner was 
the important part of the business accomplished than 
our hunger often tempted us to devour this treasure 
we had come so far to deposit, and I here at once 
avow that the greatest enemies of our own ova were 
ourselves. Why we did not render the race extinct 
I know not, unless that in many, nay, most cases, 
the eggs had been so cunningly hidden that we could 
not find them ourselves. Nor do I know how long 
the business lasted. Only one day, impelled by the 
fiercest pangs of hunger, and by an uncontrollable 
desire to get out where food was plentiful, I started. 
westward at a furious rate of speed, and escaping 
every lure, soon found myself once more in the Atlantic, 
recommencing my world-wide wanderings. 


CHAPTER XVI 
THE BONITO 


NE of the first of the deep-sea people to greet the 
() young deep-water sailor after the porpoise, is the 
gay, chubby, and brilliant fish whose name stands 
at the head of this chapter. It was thus called by the 
early Spanish voyagers, the word meaning ‘ beautiful.’ 
But I do not think they thus named it for its colours 
or its grace of movement, since in both it is greatly 
the inferior of the Coryphena. Rather I think it was 
so called from its edible qualities, combined with its 
friendliness and amenability to capture. It is a far 
more frequently seen fish than either the albacore or 
dolphin, and is also much more sociable than either 
of them. Moreover, it is gregarious in its habits, and 
swims in very large companies, so large, in fact, that 
I have often in light winds, when the sea has been 
comparatively smooth, been unable to look in any 
direction without seeing Bonito busily leaping about 
after their terrified prey. 

It is certainly a mackerel, a poor relation, so to 
speak, of the albacore, which it greatly resembles, 
though with several important differences. For in- 
stance, the brilliant gold colour and imposing size 
of the albacore’s fins are greatly modified in the case 
of the Bonito, as are also the curious bony processes 
along the medial line near the tail. Its colour, too, 
a dark blue, is not so pronounced, so transparently 


204 


The Amiable Fish 205 


handsome, as is that of the albacore. In fact, it 
belongs to the rank and file of the sea, a common, 
every-day sort of a deep-sea denizen, while the albacore 
and dolphin are rather the aristocratic leaders of sea 
society, after the whale tribe. This commonness of 
character, coupled with what it is only a slight stretch 
of language to call affability of demeanour, is what 
has endeared the Bonito to sailors generally, although 
alas, from the same cause as before noted, s.e. the decay 
of the sailing vessel, there are many sailors afloat who 
have never seen, and probably never will see, one. 
There is another, and still more important reason 
why the Bonito is the sailors’ best-loved fish—the 
ease with which he may be caught. The handling 
of the albacore from a ship’s bowsprit is a task 
demanding much more powerful tackle and strength 
of arm than any ordinary man can give to it; in fact, 
it is very seldom that one takes a sailor’s hook and is 
afterwards secured. During all my voyages I have 
only seen four actually brought on deck, but I do not 
remember how many, only that it was a very large 
number, that I have seen hooked and get away. 
Once while fishing for Bonito from the flying 
jib-boom end (my favourite place) I was vigorously 
flicking my lure, when a dark shadow shot upward 
from beneath the ship and sprang into the air, revealed 
as a superb albacore. I frantically jerked my line 
upward as I saw him coming, but in vain; he seized 
my bait in mid-air and got well hooked. He was so 
heavy that I could only lift him with both hands to 
the line at once, yet I succeeded in bringing him within 
six feet of my perch. Then the long-suffering line 
parted and he fell back into the foaming head wave 
with a stupendous splash; and I realised with a 
shudder from what I had escaped, for how could I, on 


206 _ The Bonito 


that giddy eminence, have dealt with such a monster ? 
He would certainly have paralysed my grip with his 
struggles and shaken me off the boom. The dolphin, 
too, is a fish that is seldom caught, not because it will 
not take a hook voraciously when the circumstances 
are favourable to its being deceived, but because it 
is not so sociable in its instincts as is the Bonito, and 
consequently does not give the sailor so many oppor- 
tunities of becoming closely associated with it. 
But the Bonito is essentially the sailor’s friend. In 
a slow-moving ship with a light breeze, I have known 
a school of Bonito keep company with the vessel for 
three days at a time. Apparently they took it in 
turns to escort her by proceeding steadily in orderly 
rows under and around the bows, while the rest gam- 
bolled about, hunting ahead, abeam and astern. And 
I have often seen three lines going among them at 
once, fish after fish taking the upward journey, until 
two or three dozen have been caught, and never a 
sign of alarm among those below, unless one of the 
hooked ones got off and fell back among his fellows 
with a loud splash, and with blood streaming from 
his gills. Then indeed there would be an instant 
disappearance of the whole school, only sometimes a 
quick eye could catch a departing leap or two some 
distance away. That, of course, was due to the smell 
of blood, or whatever sense it is in fish which takes 
the place of smell, apprehending that there was blood 
about. Any fish thus wounded among his fellows 
in the deep sea has no suffering—he is torn in pieces 
and devoured instantly. And in none was this more 
noticeable than in the sharks, for whenever one met 
his death by the blow of a blubber spade, which was 
about every five minutes, while we were cutting in 
the whale, his companions fell upon him and tore him 


A Life of Peril 207 


in fragments before he had time to sink, and instantly 
returned to their furious occupation of tearing at the 
whale. 

’ In considering the life of the Bonito, we must 
remember that. we are descending the size scale, and 
that consequently the number of his enemies appre- 
ciably increase. The largest Bonito I ever saw scaled 
only twenty-eight pounds, and I feel sure that he was 
a great exception to the general rule, the average size 
being eight or ten pounds. Owing to their habit 
of swimming in large schools, and of crowding together 
as if for mutual protection, when instinct warns them 
that enemies are about, they fall a comparatively easy 
prey to such voracious enemies as the grampus, the 
albacore, and the sword-fish (Xt/zas), while, of course, 
they themselves prey quite as furiously upon the 
younger members of their own family. But they 
must be an amazingly prolific fish, judging from the 
enormous schools met with and the ease with which 
they may be captured by their enemies. 

As to their place of origin, there is perhaps more 
mystery about that than about any other of the pelagic 
fish. Whether they imitate their giant relative, the 
albacore, and make periodical visits to comparatively 
shallow waters in order to spawn, or as the dolphin 
do, deposit their ova upon and among floating masses 
of sea-weed, is a point not easily settled. But two 
things are certain, and they are, that, like the dolphin, 
the Bonito is never seen near land except that be 
very abrupt in its rise from the sea-bed, like St. Helena, 
and being essentially a surface-fish frequenting the 
deepest ocean areas, he cannot go to the bottom to 
spawn. And when we have stated that, we have ex- 
hausted our knowledge of this creature’s family habits. 

I have caught them in the North and South Atlantic, 


208 The Bonito 


in the Indian Ocean, in the North and South Pacific 
Ocean, nearly always remote from any land, and 
I have many times noticed the female roe bursting 
ripe. But where they had proposed to go to spawn 
was always a problem far beyond my ken, or ability 
to elucidate. Indeed, there is a great deal to be done 
for oceanic ichthyology, in spite of the wonderful 
work of the American Government expedition in that 
direction. It has accomplished an immense amount 
of valuable work, but one feels that only the fringe 
of the subject has yet been touched. The Natural 
History of the sea calls for the unpaid work of en- 
thusiastic amateurs like the Prince of Monaco, who, 
with great wealth at his disposal, refuses to waste 
his life in the idiotic dissipations of European capitals, 
choosing rather the absorbingly interesting (and much 
less expensive) pursuit of studying the deep-sea fauna 
in his beautiful yacht, the ‘Princess Alice” _ 
Even the study of so essentially a surface-fish as 
the Bonito is attended by many apparently insur- 
mountable difficulties; what then must be the case 
with fish who rarely, if ever, rise to within a hundred 
fathoms of the sea-surface of their own accord? And 
then one of the greatest incentives to close investigation 
of the habits of any creature is entirely absent in the 
case of deep-sea fish, #.e. that of commercial gain. 
While there are many of them, and especially the more 
accessible ones, fairly good eating, they flourish remote 
from markets of any kind, and they are never likely 
to be taken in any quantity. Moreover, they take 
far too kindly to salt, as do indeed all the mackerel 
tribe. American salted mackerel is a thing of horror 
to most of us who like salt in moderation. To my 
mind it tastes like solidified brine, with a flavour of 
fish. And no amount of soaking or parboiling seems 


—— ee 


A SCHOOL OF BONITO, 


[To face p. 


The Fish that Won’t Keep 209 


capable of modifying to any appreciable extent its 
malignant salinity. 

The Bonito is, if anything, still worse. Mourn- 
fully do I remember how, having a field day among 
Bonito just on the northern side of the Equator in 
the Atlantic, homeward bound in a very slow ship, 
the steward proposed that, as the weather was quite 
cool, he should be allowed to salt about thirty fine 
fish, or in the neighbourhood of four hundred pounds 
weight, so that our miserable rations of putrid beef 
and pork might be eked out in a little more Christian 
fashion. The idea was jumped at, and I, having 
considerable experience in cleaning fish, spent my 
watch below eviscerating and boning the fish ready 
for the pickle. 

The job was eminently successful, not a trace of 
taint appearing in the pickled fish. In high glee we 
welcomed the first mess of salted Bonito, but alas, 
we were most cruelly disappointed. Hungry sailors 
can eat almost anything, but that terrible fish was 
beyond us. It scarified the mouth as the eating of 
pure salt would do, all trace of fish as far as flavour 
was concerned seemed to have fled, and yet it had 
been steeped all night and parboiled in two waters. 
Various schemes were tried, such as soaking it in 
vinegar, drying the salt out of it in the sun (when it 
became like a piece of alabaster), but all to no purpose. 
And most tantalising of all, it retained a singularly 
appetising smell. The whole mass was dumped over- 
board, much to the gratification, no doubt, of a school 
of sharks, which was following us. But even they, 
I should think, must have wondered what the new 
and strange food was which they had gulped down 
so readily, if, as is somewhat doubtful, the shark has 
any discrimination in matters of taste at all. 


14 


210 The Bonito 


The flesh of the tunny or albacore, which is most 
closely akin to that of the Bonito, is treated very 
sparingly with salt, and is preserved by boiling it 
in oil and sealing it up in tins, which makes it a delicacy 
that keeps for an indefinite period: No doubt if the 
Bonito could be caught in easily accessible positions, 
it could be manipulated in the same sensible way, 
and might become an article of considerable com- 
mercial value. But of that there is not the slightest 
prospect, so that the Bonito will doubtless sg pis to 
pursue his jovial way in peace. 

Moreover, there is no blinking the fact that, in spite 
of the bitter cry of starving multitudes on shore, the 
incalculable wealth of the sea in food largely goes 
a-begging. Only let the fishermen be a little more 
than ordinarily successful, and immediately our souls 
are saddened by reading of many tons of succulent 
food being carted away for manure, or left upon the 
shore to poison the pure air with putrid exhalations. 
Nay, more, there are not wanting many grave and 
specific accusations levelled at’ market magnates, who 
for fear of a lowering in price, deliberately prevent 
the distribution of this excellent food, thereby com- 
mitting the triple crime of robbing the fishermen of 
their due, keeping from the poor their food, and wasting 
the precious gifts of God. It is a terribly sad thing 
to know, and sadder still perhaps to be unable to 
suggest an effective cure for such a gigantic evil. And 
if this be the case with the harvest of the sea so easily 
garnered near shore, how much more is there the 
greatest unlikelihood of any new fishery being opened 
up farther afield, and of fish that will not keep ? 

Bonito are found wherever albacore and dolphin 
are, only more so. For instance, they appear to be 
more enterprising, readier to respond to the slightest 


} 


Deep-Sea Swarms 2II 


rise in the temperature of the water outside their 
usual limits, so that I have caught them north of the 
forty degree line and almost as far south as the Cape 
of Good Hope. In the great, wide areas of loneliness 
to be found in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, they 
are, as might be expected from their habits, very 
plentiful, but I think that the largest number of them 
I have ever seen at one time was in the South Atlantic, 
well east of St. Helena and Ascension, in that vast 
and almost unvisited stretch of abysmal ocean known 
to geographers as the ‘West African Basin,’ where 
the depth varies from sixteen to eighteen thousand 
feet, and the sea literally swarms with life. 

On the eastern verge of this immense depression 
the south-east Trades, affected by the proximity of 
the African land, fail. and falter, falling almost to a 
calm. Then the belated ship, alone in the centre of 
a vast expanse, becomes a point of interest to the 
wandering population of the sea who visit her and ex- 
hibit themselves in many a curious evolution. 

Here, where no sailing-ship ever ought to be found, 
I have seen, as mentioned in the opening lines of this 
chapter, the Bonito so plentiful that I was unable 
to look in any given direction without being aware 
of thousands of them leaping after their ever-abundant 
food. And at night, when the sea was lit up by its 
natural fires of phosphorescence, the scene was ineffably 
grand, the mild effulgence being stirred continually 
into bright mazy patterns of glowing light, while 
the happy fish, apparently contemptuous of rest, 
came and went on their ceaseless errands. 

Here, too, we witnessed a scene that impressed 
itself upon the minds of everybody on board, as being 
past all their experience. It was at high noon, with 
but a light upper air stirring the sails, and wafting 


212 The Bonito 


the old brig along so gently over the glassy sea, which 
was untouched by the descent of the slightest air, that 
sitting out upon the jib-boom end one could look 
down into the translucent depths as through a pane 
of glass, and watch the gambols of the sea-creatures 
at a depth of several fathoms. 

So quiet had been the weather for several days, 
and so little did the passing of the ship disturb the 
sea-folk that there was almost as great a variety 
around us, ranging from the tiny silvery fry playing 
hide and seek among the deadly fringes of the mush- 
room-like Medusae, to the mighty albacore, as one 
would have expected to see in the most representative 
aquarium. Only that here there was no suggestion 
of bounds to that vast play and feeding ground. 
Suddenly there came from the fore-to’-gallant yard 
a cry of ‘ breakers ahead, sir.’ 

‘What’s that ?’ sharply queried the ‘ old man.’ 

The man repeated his information. 

‘Nonsense!’ angrily snapped the skipper, ‘the 
nearest land ain’t less than three hundred mile off, 
and there ain’t any bottom here less than three 
thousand fathom. Pop up aloft, Mr. Jones (to the 
mate) an’ see what that galoot’s a-gittin off his chest.’ 

Up went the mate on the instant, taking the 
glasses with him. Presently he shouted: ‘I can’t 
make it out, sir; it looks just like a line of breakers 
extendin’ from west to east, as far as I can see with 
the glasses. But it ain’t breakers, ’cause I can see 
nothin’ but just the single line, and beyond it the 
water’s smooth as ’tis here. Looks like a tide rip, 
only I never see one so monstrous as that.’ 

By this time the phenomenon, whatever it was, 
had arrived within a mile of us, and was apparently 
travelling at the rate of about six miles an hour. A 


A Mysterious Concourse 213 


deep roaring as of the distant voice of many waters 
was heard, gradually growing in volume. All hands 
came uncalled on deck, and watched with considerable 
anxiety the approach of this uncanny roll of white ; 
it drew nearer and nearer, until presently we passed 
through it with only a very slight motion of the vessel, 
for by an optical illusion it appeared a great deal 
higher than it really was. The width of the line of 
foam was about sixty feet, and in it could be seen an 
amazing variety of sea debris, while it also seemed 
to be alive with fish of all kinds. 

But the chief wonder was a few cables’ length 
behind the strange line of white. It proved, on 
nearer inspection, to be a mass of land vegetation 
consisting of several huge trees inextricably entangled 
by their branches and snake-like convolutions of 

tant creepers. It looked like a floating island, but 
—all alive. So wonderful did it appear, so full of 
movement, that a boat was got out in order that the 
skipper might go and examine it, and while I live I 
shall never forget the amazing sight it presented upon 
a close view. 

Long before we got to it, the boat’s way was im- 
peded by the vast numbers of Bonito converging upon 
it and making the sea appear as thick with fish as it 
does in the middle of a herring shoal. We pressed 
on, however, noticing how every stroke of the oars 
was followed by a crimson stain melting into brown, 
until we reached the central mass. It was so densely 
crowded with fish, large and small, with sea-snakes, 
with crabs, with creatures for which one could find 
no name, that it seemed like one vast mass of living, 
writhing forms. Ata distance one could see the shapes 
of the trees and their interlocked branches ; alongside 
all seemed alive. 


214 The Bonito 


Now there was not the slightest suggestion of 
danger ; for the sharks, of which of course there were 
many, had such abundance of easily gotten food about 
them that even had one of us fallen overboard, I do 
not believe we should have been molested at all. 
But in the presence of that seething mass of life, all 
self-subsisting, ever devouring, ever unsatisfied and 
inexhaustible, a positive sense of fear came over us 
all, and when the skipper said: ‘Stern, boys, and let’s 
get out o’ this, I don’t like it,’ we felt that he had aptly 
voiced our own sentiments. So we returned to the 
ship, feeling quite relieved to get on board again, and 
place something more substantial between us and 
those hungry hordes than the thin shell of a boat. I 
know it was foolish, but that is how we all felt. 

One peculiarity of the Bonito I must notice with 
some diffidence, because I know that I shall find myself 
in opposition to naturalists generally. It is a common- 
place that a fish is a cold-blooded animal, and it is, 
generally speaking, true. But the Bonito has blood 
as warm as our own, and I know it experimentally. 
The first Bonito I ever caught was when I was barely 
fourteen, and small for my age. I bestrode the flying- 
jib and locked my legs inside the jib-guys and round 
the boom-end, Still the stout, slippery, chubby form 
of the fish (he was about fifteen pounds weight), aided 
by his extraordinary vibrations, made it impossible 
for me to hold him by cuddling him tightly to my 
bosom. So in a fit of desperation I jammed my fingers 
into his gills, and must, I suppose, have ruptured 
his heart, which is very close to his gills, for imme- 
diately a miniature torrent of hot blood flowed all 
over me, much of it running down my bare chest 
inside of my shirt, which as usual, had no buttons on 
the front. Then, finding my strength fast going, I 


Troubles of an Observer 215 


bundled my prize up in the folds of the flying-jib, 
which was lying loosely furled upon the boom. The 
state of that jib when hoisted procured me a painful 
interview with the bos’un, which I do not care to 
recall, and my positive assertion that the fish’s blood 
was warm obtained me another hiding from the sail-- 
maker, for what he called contradicting. 

Singularly enough, such frequent disasters at these, 
consequent upon my stating what I had discovered 
for myself, while they naturally made me very reticent 
in the presence of my elders on all debatable subjects, 
have had the effect of making me loth to state my 
experiences to anybody in a superior or authoritative 
position—until the last few years, when, tired of feeling 
so cowardly, I ventured to maintain opinions based 
upon practical knowledge against ideas builded upon 
theory. After that unpleasant day, I always noticed 
how warm the blood of a Bonito was, but have only 
once before stated it in print, when I was promptly 
taken to task by an old and dear friend, a shipmaster, 
who, while admitting that he had no recollection of 
ever feeling a Bonito’s blood in his life, was sure that 
it could not be warm, as the Bonito was undoubtedly 
a fish, and all fish were cold-blooded. 

The Bonito is peculiarly liable to the attentions 
of parasites, both internal and external. I do not, 
therefore, mean to hint that other fish have none, 
only I have not been able to see them, whereas in 
dissecting a Bonito it is impossible to avoid noticing 
them. There are minute hangers on, something 
like tiny limpets, in such snug places as behind the 
pectoral fins, or between the ventrals, or on the ‘run’ 
of the fish, where the body slopes away rapidly from 
its central fulness to the fine lines of the tail. The 
presence of these may account for the apparently 


216° =. The Bonito 


aimless perpendicular leapings of the fish, quite 
different from his dash into the air after a flying-fish 
or squid. It is easy to imagine that the irritation 
caused by these vermin must sometimes become 
well-nigh intolerable. And they cling so tightly that 
I have never been able to tear one off the freshly 
caught fish, without bringing a portion of skin with it. 
Inside the mouth, and often nestling among the 
branchiae of the gills, will be found one or more white 
crustaceans, much like an exaggerated wood-louse, 
but not so flexible in the body, being incapable of 
rolling themselves up in a ball! They have eight or 
ten hooked legs, by means of which they attach them- 
selves firmly to the mouth, or throat, or gills of their 
host, and thenceforward lead a placid, well-fed, and 
uneventful éxistence at their host’s expense, being 
apparently quite exempt from the almost universal 
law of eating and being eaten in turn. I do not see 
what can ever disturb them except the death of the 
fish. When that happens they release their hold 
and crawl out of the mouth or gill-openings, seeking, 
I suppose, a fresh host, able to provide for their needs, 
having doubtless realised that no more board and 
lodging is to be expected from their late benefactor. 
In like manner does the tenacious clutch of the outside 
parasite become relaxed, and he falls off when the last 
quiver of the flesh has ceased, and the fish is dead. 
A much more unpleasant form of parasite is one 
which burrows into the muscular tissue, sometimes in 
such numbers as to make it impossible to eat the 
meat, unless the eater be something of a savage, either 
from hunger, or place of origin. It is just a fat white 
maggot, not so well formed as those seen in fly-blown 
meat, but a clumsy grub, which slowly eats its con- 
tented way through the fish’s muscles, leaving behind 


The Involuntary Host 217 


it a tube to show how it has bored its way to where 
it is found. I have also found several curious living 
things in the Bonito’s maw, but have never been able 
to determine whether they were regular lodgers or 
just visitors in the ordinary course, but being possessed 
of greater vitality than the other creatures upon which 


the fish has fed, had not yet succumbed and become 


subject to the digestive process. 

A very instructive study is that of the contents 
of the stomachs of deep-sea fish, for they are by no 
means (as might be supposed) composed of merely 
flying-fish and squid. There are often to be found 
small fish of shape quite unknown to us hitherto, and 
certainly never seen by sailors. Fish, we must assume, 
that live within the eater’s range of depth, but never 
come to the surface voluntarily. 

Of the many services rendered by Bonito to ship- 
wrecked people at almost the last gasp for want of 
food, there is no need to speak; it will be at once 
understood that so plentiful, sociable, and easily 
allured a fish as the Bonito, must often have furnished 
a meal to people who would otherwise have starved. 
And no one, who has not been driven to it, can know 
how nice a Bonito collop, cut off the quivering body 
and laid upon the almost scorching wood in the full 
blaze of the sun, until it curls up and turns quite 
black, can taste. Only of course, it presupposes 
strong teeth and wolfish hunger. 

There is a sort of poor relation to the Bonito, 
yet resembling much more closely the great albacore 
in the contour of its body and the arrangement of its 
fins, to which sailors have given the trivial name 
of ‘ Skip-jack.’ Scientifically it is termed Thynnus 
sarda, and has even been found as far north as the 
mouth of the Esk. Only one specimen though. It 


23 The Bonito 


is an elegant little fish, never growing heavier than 
about five pounds, and exceedingly succulent as to 
its flesh, which is much superior to either that of 
bonito or albacore. It is not at all unlike the blue- 
fish of the American coast, and I think its flesh is 
superior to that, highly as the latter seems to be 
esteemed in’ American restaurants. 

Its usual range of habitat is, I should say, co- 
extensive with that of the bonito, but being somewhat 
capricious in its appearance it is not nearly so often 
seen. It has earned its trivial name by its peculiar 
habit of doing continually what the bonito only does 
occasionally, that is, making short vertical leaps into 
the air for no apparent reason, except perhaps Jove 
de vivre. Itis a pretty and at the same time a peculiar 
sight to see a large school of Skip-jack all busily 
springing out of water, as if their very existence 
depended upon their doing it rapidly and regularly. 
They feed on the same food as do the bonito, but I 
have no doubt that now and then some of their smaller 
members fall victims to the hunger of the larger 
bonito. The Skip-jack and the bonito do not associate, 
they keep well clear of each other, as do all the different 
varieties I have hitherto named, unless one is chasing 
the other for a meal. 

They are by no means beloved by sailors, for the 
simple reason that unconsciously they are very tan- 
talising. Few things are more annoying to a half- 
famished crew than to see, on some delightfully quiet 
afternoon, the smiling surface of the sea dotted all 
over with circles caused by the upspringing of thousands 
of succulent fish, not one of whom will come near 
enough to the ship to be tempted, or if he did would 
be persuaded into the belief that a bit of white rag 
was a flying-fish or squid. 


The Unsociable Skip-jack 2109 


- Sociability, in the sense that most of the pelagic 
deep-sea fish have it, they do not possess, and although 
large numbers of them are often seen at one time 
they always preserve a certain individuality, an 
aloofness from each other, like that of the dolphin. 
As to accompanying a ship in the same way that 
dolphin, albacore, and bonito will do, in varying 
degrees of closeness of course, that will they never. 
And yet they may—who knows—derive some sort 
of satisfaction from being, as it were, within hail of 
her. They are, more than any of the true pelagic 
fish, independent vagabonds of the sea, roaming each 
for himself whithersoever they list, and keeping their 
family haunts enwrapped in deepest mystery. 

I remember with great satisfaction, two occasions on 
which, by the purest accident, 1 succeeded in catching 
Skip-jack, and subsequently examining them closely. 
I may say in passing, that they were the only Skip-jack 
I ever did see caught, and must admit that the capture 
was almost purely accidental. I had been fishing 
for bonito almost unsuccessfully, having only caught 
one, and the sudden tropical twilight fell before I was 
aware of it. But the evening was so lovely, the dying 
tints of the sunset so exquisitely tender, that I lingered 
on my quiet perch, loth to leave the contemplation 
of so much peaceful beauty. The line hung down 
almost straight, the bait just clear of the water, and 
occasionally I jerked it mechanically, my thoughts 
far away. Suddenly I felt a tug at it, and a weight 
upon it. Instantly called to present realities, I 
hauled up swiftly, to find a Skip-jack upon the hook, 
a fine specimen of about four and a half pounds, at 
which I was mightily astonished, as were my shipmates 
when I took him into the forecastle to show them. 

The other occasion was at the front end of the 


220 The Bonito 


day, as a French chum of mine used to term the 
dawn. I had been watching some stripes of light 
in the water alongside and ahead before daybreak, 
and determined that I would put in the time between 
daybreak and ‘ turn-to,’ six o’clock, seeing whether 
I could not invite one of the fish causing them, to 
breakfast with me. So, hastily swallowing my coffee, . 
I seized my line and ran out to the flying-boom end, 
where I started to unroll just as the first crimson 
streamers in the sky began to be reflected in the darkling 
bosom of the deep. The moment my bait touched 
the water it was seized, and by another Skip-jack, 
much to my delight. But though I stayed till the 
last minute possible before ‘turn-to’ and forfeited 
my well-beloved smoke, never another came near 
enough for me to see him, much less to be enticed 
on to my hook. So I feel sure that in both cases my 
capture was due to pure accident, and that ordinarily 
the Skip-jack does not come close enough to a ship 
to be caught, or if he does, fights shy of any lure the 
fisherman may dangle over his head. 


CHAPTER XVII 
THE FLYING-FISH 


HE subject of this chapter is undoubtedly one of 
the most interesting in the long list of the 
great fauna of the sea. It has been the occa- 

sion for much heated discussion, which seems to be 
never ending ; so-called authorities never appear able to 
agree upon the much vexed question of leap or flight. 
Quite as much nonsense has been talked about the 
Flying-fish as about the whale, and that also by 
people whose position in the natural history world 
imperatively demanded of them accurate information. 
Moreover, there has been more sympathy wasted upon 
the Flying-fish than upon any other sea creature. 
Its hard lot is bewailed because that, fleeing from its 
many enemies in the sea and soaring into the air, 
it is there seized by hovering birds, who doubtless 
regard its habit of flight as one that might most 
advantageously be followed by all the other small fish 
in the sea. 

Now in what follows, as in almost all I have already 
written, I wish it to be clearly understood that only 
personal observation has been used as a basis for the 
remarks made, and consequently I am fully prepared 
for much contradiction. As a sample of the kind of 
thing all first-hand observers of little-known creatures 
must expect, I quote an experience of mine six years 
ago. I had written an article for a popular magazine, 

221 


222 The Flying-fish 


in which I casually alluded to the minor fact well- 
known to all deep-water sailors, of the small cuttle- 
fish or Loligo leaping high enough to be carried on 
board during rough weather, and in consequence 
often being found upon a vessel’s decks. Shortly 
afterwards the editor forwarded me a letter from 
a gentleman, who stated that, although not a sailor, 
he had been round the world in sailing ships six or 
seven times, that he had never heard of the ‘ leaping’ 
squid, and that it was perfectly ridiculous to say tha 
such a clumsy creature as a cuttle-fish could leap on 
board a vessel. Consequently it was obvious that 
I was knowingly making an extraordinarily idiotic 
misstatement, etc. To which I replied (to the editor 
only) that the matter was one that could be tested 
any day by asking the first half dozen sailors met 
with at Green’s Home, or any similar place, and that 
it being so well-known a fact to all seafarers, I did 
not think it worth while to answer the age 
letter. 

But in the case of the Flying-fish I readily aldcedt 
that an observer may have an honest opinion based 
upon casual observation, or misconstruction of terms. 
The difference between leaping and flying may be 
narrowed down until some sort of an agreement be 
possible, and yet neither party feel that they have been 
worsted in the field of argument. However, I must 
bring the Flying-fish himself forward. As in the case 
of several other deep-sea fish, naturalists have been 
gradually compelled to treat minor differences in 
individuals as accidental, and not as constituting 
differing species, until at last they have most sensibly 
reduced the Flying-fish family (Exocetus) to we 
species: EF. volitans and E. nigricans. 

The first named, and the smaller of the two, es the 


His Characteristic 223 


same amazing range of ocean as the Bonito, and is 
affected in precisely the same way by warm seasons, 
which induce it to venture farther north or south than 
it normally does, according to the time of the year. 
Its limit of size is about twelve inches in length by 
four inches in circumference at the thickest parts 
of the body. In shape it is exceedingly like a grey 
mullet, especially as regards the head; the body is 
perhaps a thought squarer than a mullet’s, more 
like that of a gar-fish. In colour it is blue on the 
head and back, silvery on the abdomen, and it is 
covered with scales like a mullet or a herring. And 
herein lies one of its great claims to our notice—that 
almost alone among the pelagic deep-sea fish, it has 
not the slightest connection with the great mackerel 
family, being indeed much more allied to the denizens 
of shallow seas in its general characteristics, with one 
exception, and that is, its power of flight. 

With the exception of the pectorals there is nothing 
remarkable in the fins of the Flying-fish except that 
the lower lobe of the tail is half as long again as the 
upper. But the pectoral fins, or rather wings, are 
nearly as long as the fish, and spread at their widest 
to full three inches. When the fish is in the water 
they fold with great neatness into the side of the body, 
which at the thickest part is slightly grooved to receive 
them. When the impulse comes upon the fish to fly, 
they spring into the air in a diagonal direction, their 
wings spreading with a flash as they leave the water, 
and vibrating with such rapidity that the eye cannot 
follow their movements, except to note that they are 
vibrating. 

Now it is obvious that if this manceuvre of the 
fish were a leap, its direction, either vertically or hori- 
zontally, could not change, except that its trajectory 


224 The Flying-fish 


would be more or less flattened according to the 
distance leaped. That much, I think, will be admitted. 
But if we see the fish leave the water, pursued, say, by 
an albacore, five hundred yards on the starboard 
side of the ship, and heading towards her, perceiving 
the great obstacle in its way, change its course to one 
at right angles to its original direction, we ought to 
assume that it is flying. Especially if, as constantly 
happens, it rises at the same time twenty feet or more 
in the air, and crossing the bows turns again sharply 
in a new direction. 

Nor is this all, for I have repeatedly seen a Flying- 
fish, after changing its course three or four times and _ 
its elevation more frequently than that, after having 
flown at least a thousand yards, be about to drop, 
apparently exhausted, into the sea. But at that 
moment the gaping jaws of one of its enemies has 
protruded from the water, and it has shot vertically 
into the air again and sped away in yet another new 
direction. I am absolutely convinced that the only 
thing that compels the Exocetus to cease its flight 
is the drying of its wing membranes, when, of course, 
the vibration would split them to shreds. This, 
of course, does limit the aerial evolutions of the Flying- 
fish; but I have repeatedly seen it fly in varying 
directions for over a mile without once touching the. 
water. 

Now the Exocetus does not fly for pleasure. When- 
ever it leaves the water it is in a state of alarm, it is 
seeking safety from some of its numberless enemies, or 
it is disturbed by the passing near it of a ship’s keel. 
There are few prettier sights to be seen at sea than 
is visible when, on a fairly calm night, with the smooth 
water highly phosphorescent, a school of Flying-fish 
are disturbed. Like a galaxy of meteors they may 


SOT mae 


mm ree 
alr te eB 


A SCHOOL OF FLYING-FISH ATTACKED BY ALBACORE. 
[To face p. 225, 


Rapidity of Flight 225 


be seen streaming along very swiftly just beneath 
the surface, each leaving behind it a broadening 
track of light, until, as if at one impulse, the whole 
company suddenly leave the water, the points of their 
multitudinous exit gleaming in tiny showers of diamond 
spray. But sometimes in the dark, bewildered, they 
take the wrong direction, and may be heard striking 
the ship’s side with a series of sounds like hammer 
taps, and occasionally a straggler, flying higher than 
the rest, strikes against a mast or a sail and falls on 
deck dead. I have sometimes seen blood and scales 
on a lowermast about twenty feet above the deck, 
proving not only the height to which the fish had 
risen, but the impetuous velocity of its flight. And 
it is quite a usual thing to find Flying-fish (where there 
is no cat on board) in the morning lying on deck, with 
their heads battered into shapelessness by the force 
of their impact against some solid part of the ship. 
Poor puss, however, whose lot on board ship is always 
a rather rugged one, learns with amazing swiftness 
that fresh fish are occasionally to be found in obscure 
corners about the decks at night, and when she does, 
very few of these succulent morsels find their way into 
human mouths. 

The strangest instance, proving the velocity of a 
Flying-fish through the air, which ever came under 
my notice was on board of the barque ‘ West York’ 
in the North Atlantic, homeward bound from Portland, 
Oregon. It was a lovely night, and with a favouring 
breeze the vessel was making about five knots an hour. 
Keeping the look-out upon the small deck forward, 
which is known as the top-gallant forecastle, was 
a loutish A.B., who from his laziness, stupidity, and 
uncleanness, was no favourite on board, all the rest 
of the chaps being pretty smart. He. was sitting 


15 


226 The Flying-fish 


upon the capstan when last I saw him, dozing, I believe, 
from the position of his head. Suddenly, as the 
watch below and the unoccupied portion of the watch 
on deck were chatting, prior to the former ‘ turning 
in,’ ‘Cockney’ rushed into the forecastle howling 
like a spanked brat, and holding both hands to the 
side of his face, from which the blood was trickling 
through his fingers. He caused quite a sensation 
amongst us, for it looked as if he had been seriously 
assaulted, and he, as soon as he could speak, plainly 
declared that he had been, by the skipper’s son, 
who was second mate. He said that he was looking 
out on the starboard bow, when the second mate came 
up behind him and struck him so heavy a blow with 
his fist that it knocked him off the capstan. _ 

As soon as he had recovered he rushed in to tell 
us; and he expected us to go aft immediately and 
make a row about it. But while he was thus expending 
himself I examined his temple, finding indeed the marks 
of a very heavy blow, blood and bruised flesh, and 
also two or three fish-scales! Saying to my ship- 
mates, ‘Hold on a minute,’ I rushed up on to the 
forecastle head, and sure enough, underneath one 
of the stowed anchors, beside the cat-tail, I found the 
aggressor, a splendid Flying-fish, about a pound and 
a half in weight, with its head almost driven into its 
body. And, as a salve for his grievous wound, I gave 
it to the ‘ Cockney ’ for his breakfast. 

In order that the Exocetus may indulge easily in 
these aerial excursions, it is provided with a very 
much enlarged swim-bladder, which, when inflated, 
fills the whole cavity of the abdomen. There is also 
in the mouth another bladder, which is filled with 
air through the gills, and both these inflations are 
performed automatically at the moment the fish leaves 


Domestic Haunts of Exocetus 227 


the water. The bladders, of course, are kept full 
of air while the fish is on the wing, but the moment 
it touches the water they are deflated, allowing the 
fish to plunge as rapidly as it wishes to the limit of 
its depth, which is not very great. These bladders 
are an excellent substitute for the air cells within the 
bones of birds, and make of the fish a veritable bird 
while on the wing. 

The spawning place of the Exocetus, in the North 
Atlantic, at any rate, is among the floating weed in 
the Sargasso Sea, the breeding place of so many sea 
denizens.. Here I have often seen masses of ova 
large enough to fill a flour-barrel, and looking exactly 
like bunches of white currants, colour, size, and trans- 
parency all lending themselves to the illusion. No 
doubt whatever can attach to this statement, because 
the tiny fry with the yelk fastened to it still by the 
umbilicus were also often hauled up, and even to the 
naked eye were recognisable at that early stage as 
Flying-fish. But I am quite conscious that the question 
of the breeding-places of the Indian Ocean and Pacific 
Flying-fish is still a moot point. No one can imagine 
the Flying-fish migrating such vast distances as would 
be necessary if all of them bred in the North Atlantic. 
I should, however, suppose that they find, in all oceans, 
submarine forests of seaweed in the immediate vicinity 
of steep-to land where they can spawn, and amid 
whose dim intricacies their young descendants may 
be reasonably safe from the majority of their enemies. 
This sheltering of young fry is undoubtedly one of 
the chief ends, if not the chief end, subserved by sea- 
weed all around the world. Without such shelter it 
is hard to imagine how any of the helpless fry would 
survive the attacks of their countless voracious enemies, 
the worst, perhaps, being their own relatives. 


an 


228 The Flying-fish 


The Flying-fish is probably one of the most prolific 
of all fish, not even excepting the herring. For it 
must be remembered that it is the staple food of all 
the larger pelagic fish, albacore, dolphin, bonito, and 
skip-jack, while undoubtedly it preys upon its own 
species more ravenously than do the strangers. I have 
caught a Flying-fish with another nearly half its own 
size jammed in its throat, and the greedy rascal had 
eleven smaller ones, ranging from one to three inches 
long, distending its maw. This fact of its exceeding 
voracity soon modified my feelings of compassion 
towards it. Like most people, I felt sorry for the poor 
persecuted fish, which appeared to know no moment 
of security, whose life was one long series of hair- 
breadth escapes; indeed, I often wondered how it 
was that any escaped at all. For, the attack of the 
dolphin, for instance, always seemed to me unerring. 
I never saw a Flying-fish missed by a dolphin, often 
as I have seen them chased, and numberless times 
have I seen the graceful sea-birds swoop down into 
the midst of the fleeing school and take easy toll of 
them while on the wing. But when I saw how ruthless 
they were themselves, and also how, in spite of the 
amazing numbers eaten by the larger fish and birds, 
there never seemed to be any diminution in the quan- 
tity of those remaining, I ceased to criticise the ar- 
rangements of the Creator, and reassured myself 
that the Flying-fish was as perfectly happy and as 
well provided for as are all the rest of His creatures. 

The other species of Flying-fish, which I have not 
yet alluded to at length, E. nigricans, is quite an 
imposing fish. He has two pairs of wings, the ventrals 
being extended like the pectorals, only of course, 
less so. It is a handsome, if sombre-looking fish, 
its markings being black and silver instead of blue 


The ‘Guineaman ’ 220 


and white, while its fins are also black, with a trans- 
verse band of silver. I feel some little hesitation in 
speaking of the principal hue of this fish as black, 
because it is by no means a jet black, or even an ink 
black. But it certainly cannot be called anything 
else but black, since it is neither very dark blue nor 
deep brown. It is really a dull black, almost rusty, 
but of course when it is wet it is brightened somewhat. 
It grows to a length of twenty inches, and a weight 
of over three pounds, but it is very seldom seen of 
those dimensions by sailors. I believe its habitat 
to be but a small strip (comparatively speaking) of 
the North Atlantic, and I know that when one is 
caught at Barbadoes, the irrepressible negroes always 
allude to it affectionately as ‘ ole Guineaman,’ showing 
their belief in its origin being the Gulf of Guinea. 
Whether that is so I do not know, having never been 
there, and not being able to find any allusions to the 
matter in books of Natural History, which, indeed, 
contain very little reliable information about the 
habits, etc., of deep-sea fish, however minute the 
anatomical details they may afford about specimens 
which have been captured, preserved and brought 
home. 

There is a deeply rooted notion among seamen, 
from whence arising nobody seems to know, that 
in various parts of the world, regular fisheries of the 
Exocetus are carried on, but in a most peculiar manner. 
It is assumed that a glare of light is an attraction 
irresistible to the Flying-fish, aud, in consequence, 
this failing of his is made use of to lure him to de- 
struction. Boats go out at night, the darker the 
better, propelled by paddles, as being the most noiseless 
method, and having a net set like a sail upon a vard 
hoisted upon the usual mast, with its foot also spread 


230 The Flying fish 


out. A lantern is hoisted to the middle of this net, 
at the sight of which the fish fly towards it, strike 
the net and fall down into the boat. It is therefore 
considered to be the easiest form of fishing known. 
Unfortunately, in spite of the precise details of this 
description and the matter-of-fact way it is, or used 
to be, regularly told to the young deep-water sailor, 
it is nothing but a yarn. No such fishery is carried 
on anywhere, nor has ever been, although I do not 
doubt that every retailer of the story believes it. 
There is, however, a regular Flying-fish fishery carried 
on at one place in the world, and only one, systemati- 
cally. Such few instances of Flying-fish being caught 
among some of the South Sea Islands do not count, 
as they are more or less accidental and not ae all 
planned out. 

At the beautiful island of Barbadoes in the West 
Indies there has been established for over a century 
a regular Exocetus fishery, which is carried on all the 
year round, with great average success. It furnishes 
the inhabitants of Bridgetown and Speightstown 
and the coast villages with their staple food; in 
fact, it is often said in jest that the ’Badians do not 
feel fed unless they have Flying-fish with every meal. 
It is almost universally cooked in the same way, that 
is, the bones are removed, and the fish not fried or 
boiled, but sauté in gravy—not nearly so pleasant a 
method, in my opinion, as grilling or frying. But 
that is purely a matter of taste. The price fluctuates 
much, according to the catch, but happily there is no 
‘ring’ in Bridgetown market. If the boats all return 
loaded to the gunwale, as they sometimes do, the 
price falls at once so low that the very poorest negro 
can get a meal for half a dozen hungry people for‘a 
tup, three halfpence, while next day the same money 


The Barbadoes Fishery 231 


may only purchase one small fish. But none of the 
fish is wasted because there is a glut. It must all 
be disposed of rapidly, for in that torrid climate a 
very few hours will turn it putrid, and it would be 
a sin to throw it away, in the simple darkies’ creed. 
so what is unsold is distributed gratis to the poor. 
At least, I am now quoting what was the practice 
twenty-three years ago.’ By the law of compensation 
it usually happens that when Flying-fish are scarce, 
albacore, dolphin, bonito, or jew-fish are plentiful, 
all these abounding in the deep-blue waters which 
come up so close to the island shores. 

The method pursued in this fishery is even more 
simple than that described in the yarn already given. 
The only gear needed are a few nets made on hoops 
some three feet in diameter, of about half-inch mesh, 
and with scarcely any ‘ bag’ to them, two or three 
stout lines and hooks, for possible big fish, and a set 
of granes. The boat is usually sloop-rigged, and 
from three to ten tons, carrying the usual boat’s gear, 
but always undecked. A few Flying-fish kept from 
the previous day’s catch are the bait, very strong 
-in odour and oozing with oil. Thus equipped, the 
boats put forth just before dawn, so as to be on the 
ground at the time of calm or nearly so. More for- 
tunate than their northern brethren they are always 
sure of their weather; they have no need to consult 
the tides, and their season lasts all the year round. 
Moreover, there is scarcely any change in the hour of 
daybreak, and the weather is always warm, so warm 
in fact, that the fisherman’s sole garment is usually 
a flour sack with three holes cut in it for head and 
arms. 

Upon leaving the harbour the boats make all 
possible speed to a distance of about three miles off 


232 The Flying-fish 


the land, where the water is the intense blue of mid- 
ocean. Having arrived, the peak of the sail is dropped 
and the tack hoisted; in sea parlance, the sail is ‘ scan- 
dalised,’ and the boat allowed to drift.. By this time 
the gorgeous tropical sunrise is unfolding its ineffable 
glories, and great splashes of radiant hue appear and 
disappear upon the placid face of the sea. But the 
fishermen have no eyes for celestial beauty now. 
Bending over the side they knead and squeeze the 
semi-putrid bait in the water until it is broken up into 
minute fragments, which sink very slowly, and the 
exuding oil glazes the sea-surface until it is like looking 
down through a plate of clear glass. | 

Presently a few swiftly moving specks appear 
beneath. They increase in. number rapidly, until 
the vast depth seems alive with them, oftentimes 
appearing just a mass of fish. Grasping the hoops 
of their nets on each side, the fishermen lean as far 
over the boat’s gunwale as may be, and with the 
utmost caution to make no sound, pass the lower 
edges of the nets into the water as far out as they can 
reach. They press them downwards and draw them 
inwards, at the same time lifting them with their 
inner edges touching the side of the boat until they 
can pour their load of Flying-fish into her hold. 

If the school be large and the work skilfully done, 
it is not uncommon for the boat to be loaded in an 
hour from one school, without appreciably diminishing 
its numbers. But it is exhausting work, and exciting 
withal, so that it often happens that an incautious 
move is made, a slight noise produced, and with one 
great flash of innumerable turning silver bellies, all 
close together, the school has disappeared. This may 
occur a dozen times in the course of the morning, 
or say from six o’clock until nine, the fish being so 


Good Sport 233 


numerous and so very timid. Or it may be that for 
some unaccountable reason scarcely any fish are seen, 
and the fleet has to return practically empty. 

But the most usual form of scare for the fish is 
the appearance of some of their natural enemies, 
bonito, albacore, or dolphin. Then the nets are put 
away, the lines are unrolled, and some real sport is 
indulged in, which, pace those lovers of high angling 
art who cannot see any fun in fishing except with a 
rod, and who glory in beguiling the mighty tufia or 
tarpon by means of a rod and line no thicker than 
ordinary grocers’ twine, has much to recommend it to 
people whose chief aim is to earn a living, but who 
have no earthly objection to a little sport thrown in. 
And so, taking it all round, this old-fashioned fishery 
of one of the least known, least understood sea people 
in the ocean, goes merrily on in a satisfactorily suc- 
cessful way, supplying the islanders with an abundance 
of wholesome food of high quality at nominal cost 
as a rule. For the average price is, or used to be, 
about four or five a penny, each as large as a good- 
sized herring. Guineamen, of course, fetch more, 
but they are very seldom caught. 

Possibly because Barbadoes is so far to windward 
that these deep-sea loving fish do not fear to frequent 
it, it has a monopoly of the fishery, none of the other 
islands seeming to care for establishing a similar enter- 
prise. I am inclined to think that from its position, 
so isolated and far out in the Atlantic, also its steep-to 
shores, the Exocetus has come to regard Barbadoes 
very much in the light of a ship which they can with 
safety approach quite near to. Certainly I know of 
no other island or mainland in the world where Flying- 
fish are found in such abundance at so reasonable a 
distance. Not even Ascension or St. Helena, although 


234 The Flying-fish 


both are in the heart of Flying-fish territory, and both 
are greatly frequented by all those larger fish which 
feed on the Exocetus. Barbadoes alone possesses the 
facilities for baie i them, and the requisite ectrey 
to do so. 
_ Flying-fish are also found in the Meditercaneein| 
but not in any great numbers. Also in the Red Sea 
and Persian Gulf they are to be seen, but they are 
by no means plentiful. It would really seem as if 
the Flying-fish feels that nothing but the widest 
breadths of ocean give him ample verge and room ~ 
enough, so that, although he is tempted occasionally — 
into the narrow seas, he never feels at home there, 
and is anxious to get out to the vast playing-grounds 
of old ocean. There, in spite of the hosts of his enemies, 
he leads a life of perfect freedom, his numbers, despite 
the amazing tax upon them, apparently never de- 
creasing. But, as with all the other fish I have dealt 
with, he cannot be studied, his society’ cannot be 
enjoyed from the deck of the swift steamer. It is 
necessary to be in a leisurely sailing ship to realise, 
first, what the Flying-fish is; secondly, what he 
is capable of performing in the way of es ; and 
thirdly, how vast are his numbers. 

Very vividly come to my mind the many sucked 
when I have seen more than a square mile of smooth 
sea-surface suddenly broken into foam by the upheaval 
of myriads of Flying-fish, who sped through the lucent 
air like an undulating wave of molten silver, and 
with a musical murmur like the hum of far-off bees. 
How often have these wonderful little fish, like the 


bonito, come just in time to save precious lives adrift 


in boats or on rafts! When all hope has fled, the 
last crumb, the last drop has been expended, there — 
has fallen into the midst of the perishing ones these — 


Ea, 


Bizarre Flying-Fish 235 


succulent morsels, as if dropped from heaven. It is 
doubtful whether, of all the sea-people who do their 
best to show the sailor the infinite populousness of 
the sea, there are any for which he feels a greater 
regard than he does for the Flying-fish; although, 
of ‘course, it grieves him to think that, owing to cir- 
cumstances over which neither of them can exercise 
any control, he does not see as much of his little friend 
at table as he would dearly like to. 

Under the head of Flying-fish I must treat of 
another interesting denizen of the deep sea, which 
is in very truth a Flying-fish, if far inferior in powers 
of aerial locomotion to the Exocetus. Two species 
of this strangely built, but exceedingly pretty fish 
as regards colour, are quite familiar to dwellers in our 
own towns, being often seen on the fishmongers’ 
slabs. 

The first is the Red Gurnard (Trigla cuculus), so 
called as to the second half of its pedantic title, be- 
cause it emits a sound when captured much like a 
cuckoo. But it certainly is not fair to call it a deep-sea 
fish, since it is only found in comparatively shallow 
waters, on the bottom, where it feeds on crustacea. 
It is abundant on our coasts, and in consequence of 
its cheapness, is not thought nearly as much of as the 
excellence of its flesh entitles it to be. 

The second is the Sapphirine Gurnard (Trigla 
hirundo), as quaint in appearance as the first, but 
even more beautiful as regards colour, a quantity of 
blue being interspersed with its deep red. 

Now between these two, common as they are in 
our waters, there is one essential difference; the 
second is a ‘ flying-fish,’, the first is not.. The: first, 
as any one may test for himself, ata good fishmonger’s, 
has its beautiful fins quite normal in size, the second 


230 The Flying-fish 


has the pectorals greatly lengthened, enabling it to 
skim along the sea surface for quite thirty or forty 
feet. But this is evidently only a prolonged leap, 
making of the outspread pectoral fins a sort of para~ 
chute to buoy them up. Again, an inspection of these 
fish, which may often be made at the fishmonger’s, 
will at once show this, the weight of them running 
up as high as five pounds, and the comparatively 
small area of the pectoral fins forbidding the idea of 
flight, in the commonly accepted sense. 

There are, however, two other species, Dactylop- 
terus volitans and D. Orientalis, which approach much 
more nearly to the idea of true flight, although even 
they never perform the feats which the Exocetus is 
capable of. The first is common in the Mediterranean 
Sea, where it affords abundant sport to the homeward 
bound tunny or albacore. But, from a cursory glance 
at this Gurnard, one is compelled to wonder of what 
material the fish’s throat must be lined, who ventures to 
swallowhim. His head is armed with bony plates, whose 
edges are spiky and razor-sharp, his back is liberally 
furnished with dorsal spines, the anterior ones very 
long and sharp as a cambric needle, and even his sides 
bristle with keen-edged or pointed weapons. His 
armament therefore is such as to make him a most 
dangerous fish to handle, and the fact that he can be 
swallowed by albacore and bonito without inflicting 
any deadly injury upon them would seem to argue, 
first, that their throats must be armour-clad, and 
secondly, that digestion is with them a very powerful 
function. 

The colours of these curious fish are very diversified. 
Brown, red, pink, grey, black, and blue are distributed 
over its body in tasteful markings, and when observed 
closely during its flight in the sunshine, the effect is 


Ai eT 


_A Splendid Fellow 237 


very pleasing, all the colours being rich and bright 
as those upon a butterfly, and further accentuated 
by being wet and shiny. In these species the pectoral 
fins are very large, much larger in fact, proportionately, 
than those of the Evxocetus, at least apparently. But 
on closer examination it is seen that the body of the 
Gurnard is much more stocky, and consequently 
heavier than that of the Exocetus, while the buoying 
up bladders are very small and ineffective. Apart 
from this knowledge it would be very difficult to under- 
stand why the Gurnard should not be a much better 
flyer than the Exocetus. For the wings, instead of 
tapering off towards the end, like those of the Exocetus 
(which much resemble a swallow’s wings) actually 
broaden out, being considerably wider at the tip than 
at the junction with the body. They are also fantas- 
tically decorated with long protruding spines at the 
sides and ends, the ribs of the parachute, as it were, 
produced beyond the membrane, perhaps for protection 
but apparently for decorative purposes. 

The second of these volatile fish is a denizen of 
the Arabian sea, Persian Gulf and Bay of Bengal, 
never being seen very far from land. It is practically 
unknown to sailors, but is often caught with hook 
and line by the hardly bestead native fishermen on 
the Coromandel Coast, who pursue their calling upon 
a wretched contrivance of their logs lashed side by 
side, with a few turns of coir spun-yarn, on which 
they can only maintain a kneeling position, and from 
which they are continually being swept by the sea 
when it is at all rough. They are there greatly es- 
teemed as food, and credited with much greater powers 
of flight than they really possess. 


CHAPTER XVIII 
THE DOLPHIN 


HEREFORE, or when, or how sailors as a class 
agreed to call the lovely fish which is the sub- 
ject of the present sketch a Dolphin is and 

must remain a mystery. It is the source of endless 
confusion, this mixing up of mammals and fish by 
calling them the same name, yet, such is the intense 
conservatism of the seafarer and the perfect continuity 
of tradition as regards nomenclature, that it seems im- 
possible that the Coryphaena should ever be called by 
the sailor anything but a Dolphin, or the Dolphin 
(Delphinidae) anything but a porpoise, or indeed any 
of the smallest mammalia of the sea with the exception 
of the seals. © aif 

Sailors are as a class exceedingly unobservant and 
careless in their classification of the most familiar 
fauna of the sea, but once a fish or bird has a name 
given it, that name, however absurd, is bound to stick, 
and no amount of light shed upon the creature’s habits, 
etc., will ever cause it to be altered. Perhaps after 
this small explanation I may be permitted the privilege 
of an old sailor, and call my subject, in defiance of 
scientific rules, the Dolphin. It isc an easier name at 
any rate than Coryphaena. . 

The principal characteristic of this mbewelhanalsl 
beautiful denizen of the deep sea is its iridescent 
colouring, of blue and gold principally, but so modified 
and changeable by each passing mood or pose of the 

238 


The Dying Dolphin 239 


fish, or play of sunlight, that all:splendid hues known 
to man seem to be reproduced on its body. It flashes 
through all the colour-schemes imaginable with in- 
credibly swift and dazzling effect, then as swiftly all 
the colours seem to blend into one dull silver grey, 
which renders the fish almost invisible amid the bright 
blue of the sea. 

It has long been an article of poetic faith that the 
dying Dolphin is more splendid in his colour changes 
than he ever is during life; but from this, after long 
experience, I must emphatically dissent. It is true 
that when a Dolphin suffers sudden and violent death, 
such as being transfixed by the granes or five-pointed 
fish-spear in common use on board ship, his body does 
exhibit a series’ of swiftly changing colours, fairly 
vivid. But they are never so brilliant as those shown 
by the living fish, when in the height of his activity he 
hurls himself in arrowy flight after his prey, or springs 
perpendicularly into the sunshine, the spray falling 
from him like a shower of diamonds, and his glorious 
hues flashing in the glare of the sun, with an effect 
beyond the power of any artist to depict or pen to 
describe. 

When, however, the Dolphin is caught with a hook 
and laid on deck to die, the kaleidoscopic changes 
are still apparent, but oh, so faint and dulled compared 
with those shown’ by the living fish, or even with the 
speared creature. And some time before he dies a 
dull leaden shade comes over his gaudy body, and never 
goes away again. It is permanent and unbeautiful, 
for some reason which I do not understand. Nothing 
in Nature I should say can give more pleasure to a 
colour-loving eye than the sight of a number of Dolphin 
on a sunny day, when the sea is smooth enough to 
observe all their motions properly. Not even the 


24.0 The Dolphin | 


amazingly beautiful tints and shadings of a flock of © 
humming birds can vie with the marvellous splendour — 
of this wonderful fish. ; 

A cursory examination would lead one to suppose — 
that the Dolphin was a scaleless fish, as indeed is © 
nearly true of the mackerel, with which the Dolphin — 
has undoubtedly some affinity. But a little search — 
will show that minute scales do exist all over the body, — 
covered by a fine skin, and that around the shoulders ~ 
the scales are fairly large and thickly set, so thickly — 
indeed that in removing them it is possible to run the _ 
fingers beneath them, and tear off several square inches _ 
at a time, ina large specimen. And quite close to the 
head the scales blend in so closely with the bony plates 
of the skull that, if sufficient force be used, some of the 
latter may be torn off without being separated from the 
scale-sheets. J 

Like most other sea fish, the Dolphin has a medial _ 
line extending from the middle of the head to the fork _ 
of the tail, but unlike all the Scombridae or true mackerel 
family, this line is not composed as to its posterior — 
third of horny conical processes like rudimentary — 
armour, but is merely a dark line drawn as if witha — 
lead pencil, as in the whiting, haddock, and cod.‘ Ana- ~~ | 
tomically this line is an elongation of the fifth nerve | 
of the brain, but its use who can tell? Itis probably 
a survival of some elaborate organ which had lost its 
usefulness, and so became atrophied and disappeared 
according to Nature’s inexorable decrees. y 

The fins of this elegant fish are in keeping with — 
his other beauties. On his back, from the crown of 
his head to within two or three inches of his tail, he — 
wears a dorsal fin half as wide as his body. In colour — 
it is burnished yellow gold, and its contrast with the 
dazzling peacock blue of the back immediately — 


A SHARK SEIZING A DOLPHIN, 


(To face p, 24% 


——— |. 


Elegance and Colour 241 


beneath it is exceedingly striking as well as pleasing. 
It is always carried erect, but sometimes, as when the 
fish makes one of its immense parabolic leaps after 
prey, such as a flying-fish, it seems to stand much 
higher than usual and to glow with greater intensity. 
It gives the fish a grand appearance and adds greatly 
to its apparent size. The caudal fin is very large also, 
deeply forked, and most elegant in shape. When the 
fish is in haste, its vibrations are so rapid that it seems 
to take an entirely new shape, and if the sun is shining 
it appears like two rays of flame branching out in the 
fish’s wake, being of the same metallic hue as the dorsal 
fin. The pectoral, ventral, and anal fins are com- 
paratively insignificant, as indeed is usual with what 
I like to call normally shapen fish. Only outyé-shaped 
fish have these minor fins fantastically and hugely 
developed. 

The general shape of the Dolphin is excellently 
adapted for speed. His head is high in front, almost 
rectangular, but presenting a sharp bow. The body 
behind does not thicken very much, the largest speci- 
men I ever caught being, although six feet long, only 
six inches through. It was more than a foot wide 
though, and its mouth was a horizontal gash in its 
head that opened wedge-shaped and large enough 
to admit a fish six inches in diameter. Also it was 
well-furnished with exceedingly sharp teeth, in closely 
set rows, but quite small. 

The female is precisely similar in appearance to the 
male except in the contour of the forehead, which 
recedes with a beautiful curve from the upper jaw, 
instead of being high and rectangular like that of the 
male. In colour she is quite as gaudy as her spouse, 
but in size, as usual, inferior. 

Now with regard to their breeding-places, they 


16 


242 The Dolphin. 


are, like those of most deep-sea pelagic fish, wrapped 
in mystery. But although I would not care to be too 
dogmatic upon the subject I feel sure that the Dolphin 
deposits its ova in masses of floating weed such as the 
gulf-weed or Sargassum bacciferum of the North 
Atlantic. Even that, however, does not explain the 
breeding-places of those Dolphin who inhabit the Pacific 
and Indian Oceans or the Mediterranean, unless 
we may suppose that, like the albacore, the Dolphin 
circumnavigates the globe, in order to return to his 
favourite spawning-places. One thing is certain, 
they do not spawn at any depth, for they are an 
essentially pelagic or surface-fish. And they are never 
seen in the vicinity of land, except as in the case of such 
mountain peaks as St. Helena, Ascension, St. Paul’s 
Rocks, etc., which, rising almost sheer from great 
depths, have bold, steep-to, precipitous shores, around 
which the Dolphin may be seen playing quite close to 
the rocks, apparently regarding them as a new and 
curious kind of ship. At least that is the impression 
made upon a sailor accustomed (in a sailing ship that is) 
to be accompanied in ocean’s remotest solitudes by 
these wonderfully friendly and beautiful fish. 

The habitat of the Dolphin is almost co-extensive 
with that of the sperm whale and albacore. But being 
apparently more intolerant of cold than either of these 
sea denizens, he is seldom found so far north or south 
as they range. Only when an exceptionally warm 
summer heats the sea-surface considerably above its 
usual temperature does the Dolphin extend his wander- 
ings into unfamiliar regions, following his natural 
food, the flying-fish and squid, who, being like himself 
true pelagic fish, love to roam as far as they can out 
of their usual regions when the unwonted warmth of 
the water invites them to do so. I have seen them as 


Modern Sea Disabilities 243 


far north as the Azores and have heard of them being 
seen in the Bay of Biscay; but, while I do not feel 
able to deny that this can be true, I feel sure that the 
conditions must have been abnormal in the extreme. 

Now it may be considered an ultra-refinement 
of description thus to dwell upon the peculiarities of a 
creature which is quite unknown to the majority of 
people, and from the circumstances of the case likely 
to remain so. For not only is it a very small fringe 
of the population that goes or can go to sea far enough 
to see a Dolphin, but even sailors are being precluded 
from making the acquaintance of Deep-Sea People 
by reason of the passing away of the sailing vessel. 
There are very many sailors to-day who have done 
an enormous amount’ of voyaging to all parts of the 
world, yet have never seen one of these fish, which 
used to be among the most familiar objects to seafarers, 
because these essentially social sea inhabitants do 
not like the throbbing of the propeller or the swift 
rushing of the steamship. Much as they would like 
to forgather with a ship, they find it impossible so to 
do, unless she is propelled by sails. And so it comes 
to pass that the deep-sea fish are losing that intimate 
touch with man, which they have maintained for 
countless generations, to the exceeding benefit of 
the sailor. 

My first acquaintance with the Dolphin was made 
at a very early age. It was on my first voyage, from 
London to Demerara, in British Guiana. The weather 
was exceedingly fine, and the trade winds quite light. 
As we crossed that weed-covered vortex in the 
North Atlantic so widely known as the Sargasso Sea, 
we were often hardly able to force a passage through 
the hay-coloured masses, so feeble was the impetus 
given to our bluff-bowed old craft by the laggard 


244 The Dolphin 


breeze. Occasionally we came to a great clear space 
in the midst of the surrounding aggregations of weed, 
wherein it seemed to my excited fancy there moved all 
the embodiments of my most fevered dreams, such 
weird shapes as only seemed possible of materiali- 
sation in a kind of waking trance. But suddenly, 
while moving slowly through one of the smooth water- 
glades, we came upon a large school of fish, numbering 
some thousands I should think, who swam in a compact 
body, as if moved by one common impulse. 

When they all turned simultaneously, the flash 
given off by their bodies was as if a gigantic mirror 
had suddenly revolved, focussing the sun upon my eye. 
I was fascinated, spellbound. It had never before 
occurred to me that all over the great and wide sea 
we should meet with fish ; like so many other people, 
I had imagined the sea to be a barren waste of bitter 
waters. Breathlessly I sought the only sailor on 
board from whom I was ever able to get any information 
and, full of excitement, led him to the rail, where I 
pointed out the school. ‘ Wha—what are they?’ 
I gasped. He gave just one look, jerked out the word 
‘Dolphin,’ and rushed away, leaving me wondering 
whatever was the matter. 

He dived into the forecastle, emerging in a minute 
with a fishing-line, to the end of which was attached 
a stout hook and a burnished piece of tin. Running 
out to the bowsprit end he began to jerk the line up 
and down, allowing the shining lure to touch the water 
intermittently. In a minute he had a fish, the whole 
school having moved on to a spot just beneath him, 
And I had the privilege of fetching his catch in while 
he tried for another. He caught them so fast that I 
had no time to stop and examine them until the school 
shifted, which was not before he had caught eight. 


A School of Juveniles 245 


Then the school having temporarily disappeared, 
he came in, and we gloated over the catch together. 
I of course, who had never hitherto seen a fish caught 
larger than a stickleback in the Serpentine, was full 
of amazement at their size, being about eighteen inches 
long and averaging three pounds weight each. But 
Joe told me that they were very young ones and were 
seldom met with like this, usually keeping concealed 
somewhere until they were much larger. And when 
he told me how large they really grew, I confess that 
I felt very doubtful of his veracity. 

For the rest of that day I had no relief from my 
desire to see more of these pretty fish. I kept as careful 
a watch for them as if my life depended upon discovering 
them. But it was not until I accidentally glanced 
down the rudder trunk—a curious-shaped opening 
in the after-part of the quarter-deck which admitted 
the rudder-head, and down which there was plenty of 
room for a slim man to fall by the side of the rudder into 
the sea—that I discovered the school all closely 
packed under the ship’s bottom, as if they were 
magnetically held to her sides. Whereat my wonder 
was again excited; but as my chum was now asleep 
I had to watch, and see if I could find out for myself 
why they thus clustered about us. It could not be 
for food, I reasoned, for the vessel had been newly 
sheathed with yellow metal just before leaving, and 
there were as yet no sea-growths, either animal or 
vegetable, upon her. And as I watched and wondered 
it was suddenly revealed to me why these fish gathered 
so closely about us. It was for shelter, for pro- 
tection. 

All at once there darted into the midst of their 
close-packed masses one of their own kind, but very 
much larger, one at least six feet in length and 


246 Thé Dolpa 


proportionately wide. I saw them scatter, but aim- 
lessly, as if they knew not whither to flee. And indeed 
they did not, for if some security could not be found 
hugging the underside of the ship, it most assuredly 
would be absent from the open spaces of the clear 
sea. The aggressive cannibal could for a brief space 
be dimly discerned as he darted to and fro amidst the 
frightened youngsters, and then the water became so 
foul with blood and floating fragments of fish still 
quivering with recent life, that I could not see more 
of the fray for a little space. When, however, we 
had passed beyond that befouled area and the trans- 
parent blue beneath enabled me to notice what was 
occurring, I saw that the aforetime solid mass, was, 
although still endeavouring to cling to the shelter of 
the ship, broken up into many little groups, which 
continually shifted their position, as if demoralised 
by fear. 

Thus they remained with us until we again pene- 
trated the mass of floating weed, when we lost them, 
for there they found better shelter than the ship could 
afford, besides what they must have needed badly, 
an abundance of suitable food. I have never been 
able to see a school of Dolphin younger than those 
were, although I have many times seen them in large 
schools of individuals somewhat more developed, but 
still clinging together, as if for mutual protection. 
I once boarded a derelict in mid-Atlantic which 
contained a large number of these small Dolphin. 
They had evidently, in rushing from the attack of 
one of their numerous enemies, plunged headlong 
into the gaping captivity of the main-hatch, which 
was completely uncovered and had its port coamings 
quite under the sea, the vessel being nearly on her 
beam-ends. The fish darted about between the tum- 


TT 


Adult Immunity 247 


bling logs which composed her cargo as if they were 
quite at home amid their strange surroundings ; but 
I could not help thinking that many of them must 
have got crushed to death down there. 

The aggregate numbers of Dolphin in the ocean 
must be very great, but still quite insignificant, I 
should say, compared with the incalculable hosts of 
the better-known sea fishes, which frequent shallow 
waters and are of such value as food. For, except 
when they are quite immature, and, swimming together, 
appear to invite the onslaught of their enemies, who 
are of many kinds, they are never even seen in groups, 
much less in shoals. All their hunting is done in- 
dividually, and although one seldom sees one Dolphin 
without others being near, they do not appear to 
fraternise at all. Perhaps in the presence of a common 
danger, like the attack of an albacore or a sword-fish, 
they might revive the memories of their youth and 
draw together for mutual comfort, but I very much 
doubt it. I believe instinct teaches them that the 
more widely separated they are, the more opportunities 
will be afforded them of making good their escape. 
Indeed, I am ata loss to imagine how any fish could 
possibly overtake the Dolphin to do him any harm 
except by stratagem, his amazing speed enabling 
him to distance easily any other enemy when un- 
hampered by the company of many friends. I really 
believe that when once the Dolphin attains his or her 
full growth, which, owing to the systematic devouring 
of the younger ones by their congeners and other deep- 
sea fish, is only the case with about five per thousand 
of those hatched, he or she is practically immune from 
destruction by any enemy except man. And, as is 
the case with so many other of the deep-sea folk, 
owing to the steady displacement of sailing ships by 


248 The Dolphin 


steamers, man does not now often get a chance to. 
do them any harm. | 

The food of the Dolphin, as before hinted at, is 
flying-fish and squid, with an occasional feast upon 
the young of his own species, or any other species 
that come in his way. I have, on several occasions, 
found in the maw of a Dolphin that I have caught, 
specimens of small fish that were quite unknown 
to me, fish that sailors never see except under similar 
conditions. So that the Dolphin is like most other 
fish, he has his special predilections ; but almost any- 
thing that is eatable in the sea he will eat. However, 
I firmly believed that he only ate living fish, that it. 
was impossible to lure him with anything but an ap- 
parently living bait, and that, if the play of the bait 
were allowed to cease for an instant while he was 
near, he would immediately retire disillusioned, and 
no amount of coaxing would bring him back again. 

But it so happened that one day, when the ship 
was lying as still as a ship can be at sea, it being a 
stark calm, several Dolphin paid us a visit. One came 
near enough to be transfixed by the granes skilfully 
hurled by the boatswain, but the others took the 
pointed hint and kept out of harm’s way. The jerking 
about of a piece of polished metal fastened to a hook 
dangled from the jib-boom end quite failed to attract 
any of them. They kept at a reasonable distance 
from us when on the surface, and only drew near to 
us about the keel when they settled down into the 
depths. 

The fish that had been caught was handed to me 
as usual for dissection, and in its maw I found some 
flying-fish that had been quite recently swallowed, 
and not at all injured. One of these I fastened on 
to a hook, and lowered it quietly into the translucent 


ae te 


Luring Dolphin 249 


water under the stern, paying out line until the flying- 
fish gleamed like a silver spot about five fathoms deep. 
Presently a Dolphin came stealing out from beneath 
the ship, where he had been lying in the shade, and 
leisurely neared my bait. I saw him put his nose 
to it, I watched him turn and take it in his mouth, 
and when it had entirely disappeared I struck as hard 
as I could, and caught the largest Dolphin I have ever 
seen, whose weight was forty pounds. By using the 
same means, I, that afternoon, caught three more 
large Dolphin, and fully established the fact that the 
moving lure was not essential. Afterwards I caught 
Dolphin with a piece off one of their own bodies, cut 
in the shape of a fish from the under side, where there 
is a silvery sheen upon it. I shall not soon forget 
the.joy there was in the forecastle over that first catch. 
No one expected it, but every one was hoping for a 
breeze, in order that they might get an opportunity 
to catch some. For we were almost at starvation 
point, the provisions being so bad, and, moreover, 
scurvy was just beginning to show its awful symptoms 
upon some of us. The arrival of my fish changed 
all that, for all hands had three meals of fresh fish, 
and that by far the most sapid and succulent of all 
the deep-water fish, with the possible exception of the 
flying-fish, the latter being never caught at sea except 
by the accident of its flying aboard. 

Unlike the albacore, bonito, skip-jack, and sword- 
fish, the flesh of the Dolphin is white and full of flavour. 
Boiled, it is better than cod, only it has the drawback of 
being occasionally poisonous. Why or how it becomes 
so I do not know, nor have I ever heard any theory 
worth mentioning to account for it; but a curious 
belief of sailors in connection with it is interesting. 
They firmly believe that if a piece of silver be boiled 


250 ‘The Dolphin ~ 


with the fish, and the latter is unfit to eat, the silver 
will turn black ; but since the presence of a trace of 
sulphur in the water would produce the same effect, 
I fear it is not a very reliable test. Moreover, as fish 
caught at sea by sailors is nearly always fried or baked, 
even that doubtful test cannot usually be applied, 
and in consequence the hungry seafarer has, as he 
vulgarly puts it, to ‘go it blind,’ and hope that he 
will not wake up with swollen head, distorted and 
discoloured features, and an acute sense of pain all 
over his body, these being the more evident symptoms 
of fish poisoning. It must gratefully be admitted 
that instances of poisoning by Dolphin are rare, and 
by bonito and albacore practically non-existent. It 
is only, as a rule, the curiously shaped and coloured 
fish caught in out-of-the-way harbours that are 
dangerous to the eater. None of them are deadly, 
except the patient be in a very poor state of health, 
or unable to apply the simple remedies indicated. 

For some curiously finical reason the Dolphin has 
been supposed to have several different branches in 
his family ; but like so many other creatures of the 
sea that have been credited with many ramifications 
of species, careful investigation has so reduced the 
supposed varieties that the most eminent ichthyo- — 
logists now only credit Coryphaena with two branches, 
C. hippurus and C. equisetus. It may well be that 
even this last distinction will break down upon closer 
scrutiny, and only one variety be found to obtain all 
the world over. Still, it is very easy to understand 
how this opinion as to differing species may arise, 
owing to the fact that the young differ widely in their 
fin shapes and contour of head, also the colour arrange- 
ment is much modified as they grow older. 

But a great difficulty confronts the museum 


Sucking-fish Parasites 251 


naturalist in the study of the deep-sea fauna. He is 
so greatly dependent upon stray specimens brought 
home for his observation, he cannot, in the nature 
of things, bring personal experience to bear, and he 
must theorise largely. Which of course tends to error, 
since it is, to a great extent, working in the dark. 
I have had a curious instance of this while preparing 
the present chapter. 

In previous pages I have described the Remora, 
or parasitical sucking-fish, under the head of sharks, 
because every specimen I have seen, and they run 
into hundreds, have possessed all the well-known 
characteristics of the shark. The curious leaden 
and white hue of the body, the long upper lobe of the 
tail fin, the strange eye full of sinister expression, 
the scaleless shagreen skin, making a very good sub- 
stitute for sandpaper, and the gill-openings, just slits 
in the side of the neck, instead of one large free opening 
spreading wide and admitting the water to the blood- 
red feathery branchiae inside; all these marked my 
suckers and stamped them as sharks. Only there 
was superadded the curious oval sucker on top of the 
head, by means of which the lazy creature attaches 
itself to its host, whether it be living or dead. Now 
I am told that the Remora is not a shark at all, but 
a mackerel. Of course, I can fully understand that 
there may very well be a species of Remora which is 
a mackerel, but that I have only seen the kind which 
has the shark characteristics I have absolutely no 
doubt whatever. 

‘I cannot understand why so familiar a fish as it 
is, being certainly much more frequently seen at sea 
than the species which I do not know, should be un- 
known to the authorities. There is, therefore, all the 
more credit due to them for having rejected all the 


252 The Dolphin 


fine-drawn theories about the varieties of Dolphin, 
and reduced them to two, which is certainly all the 
varieties there are. 

The life of the Dolphin must be an execedinely 
happy one, ranging as he does the free breadths of 
all the oceans without hindrance of any kind. He 
knows none of the binding hamperings of a fixed 
abode, and even when the irresistible claims of the 
perpetuation of his race are upon him he still knows no 
restriction, is not compelled to go where traps and 
nets are laid by man for his destruction, as is the case 
with the albacore. Such enemies as he has he is well 
able to outpace, to elude, and, although it is certain 
that Dolphin are occasionally found: in the stomach 
of a sperm whale, there is no doubt that their presence 
in that vast receptacle of all kinds of fish is almost, 
if not quite, due to overwhelming curiosity on the 
part of the Dolphin, resulting in his swimming down 
the gaping cavern of the whale’s throat, whence he 
never emerges. Sometimes, too, he is taken off his 
guard and falls a prey to a shark or an albacore, but 
that I think occurs but seldom, for he has cultivated 
in a remarkable degree the faculty of keeping a briglit 
look-out for the soundless approach of an enemy 
large enough to bite him in half and swallow him 
whole. 

I once witnessed a case in point. It was in the 
Pacific Ocean on a perfectly calm day, when from 
my perch at the mast-head all that was going on in 
the blue serene beneath, illuminated as it was by the 
fierce vertical rays of the tropical sun, was most clearly 
visible through a pair of powerful binoculars. Quite 
close at hand floated a huge log of timber, the 
upper part of which was clean and fresh-looking, 
although wave-washed. Underneath, though, it was 


A Movable Feast 253 


just a haven of refuge for a veritable host of deep-sea 
folks, all attracted to it by the harbourage it gave to 
such creatures as were capable of supplying them with 
food. 

In the first place, it was closely covered with bar- 
nacles, those curious shell fish which abound everywhere 
at sea, being seemingly evolved out of nothing, so 
quickly do they appear upon any sea-washed substance, 
such as a ship’s bottom or a floating log. They 
are attached to their home by a gelatinous footstalk, 
at the end of which their white shells, almost like 
those of a miniature mussel, except in colour, grow. 
Normally these footstalks are very short, or only 
about an inch in length, as when the barnacle is at- 
tached to a swiftly moving object. But on this log 
they averaged two feet in length, looking curiously 
like an immense mass of large-sized boiled macaroni 
growing out of the log and waving ab»ut with graceful 
undulations. This great tangle of ‘\ving filaments 
was densely populated by all sorts of small fish, 
crustacea of various kinds, etc. Outside, but very 
close to, were somewhat larger fish, eating their fill 
of the bountiful feast provided. And a little farther 
off still, coming and going with stealthy rushings, 
were several Dolphin, busily engaged in filling their 
maws with the smaller fish. It was a splendid exposi- 
tion of the chain of interdependence subsisting in 
the sea, only of course we could not follow that chain 
far, the base of it being among the creatures invisible 
except to a high-power microscope. 

But while I watched I saw a splendid Dolphin, 
his coat flashing its sapphire and gold under the rays 
of the sun, passing with leisurely tail-waving the side 
of the log nearest to me, apparently satiated with food. 
A dim shadow emerged from beneath the log just 


254. | The Dolphin 


behind him, shot upward, there was an eddy and a stain, 
and the gorgeous sea dandy was in two halves, one of 
which had disappeared down the throat of the lurking 
and crafty shark, who had so successfully stalked his 
elegant prey. Of course the second half rapidly 
followed the first down the shark’s curious crescentic 
mouth, when he immediately concealed himself again. 
Three times did I watch the shark perform that 
manceuvre successfully, exercising an amount of 
patient self-restraint that was wonderful to behold, 
remembering how cruelly he was being tormented by 
the cravings of that enormous liver of his. 

This was indeed the only occasion upon which I 
saw a Dolphin outwitted by a shark; as to being 
caught by so slow a fish as the shark is, the thing 
is unthinkable. I do not imagine, however, that the 
Dolphin is very intelligent, for I once saw a whole 
group of them, seven in number, caught one ofter 
the other fror) a flying-fish boat in Barbadoes Bay. 
We had been catching a goodly number of Exocetus, 
when the vast shoal from which we had been dipping 
out fish until our backs were nearly breaking suddenly 
vanished like the breath off a mirror. And then we 
saw the aforesaid group prowling around quite slowly, 
as if bewildered by the sudden disappearance of what 
they doubtless considered their food supply. A couple 
of stout hooks attached to heavy lines were each 
furnished with a still living flying-fish and flung over- 
side, streaming away astern in the gentle ripple of 
our wake; for we were just moving a knot or so an 
hour. In five minutes the whole seven of them were 
inboard, each coming up to take the place of the com- 
rade he had seen depart so hastily, without exhibiting 
a trace of any knowledge that there was danger to 
his life in the proximity of the boat. 


St. Helena Beef 255 


Commercially the Dolphin may be neglected. 
Except to sailors in sailing vessels, the only places 
where he is an object of any interest at all for food 
or sale are Barbadoes and St. Helena. At the former 
place he fetches a fairly good price, his flesh being 
held in high esteem and greatly prized as a change 
from the everlasting flying-fish, while in St. Helena 
he shares the privilege of being chased by the extra- 
ordinarily mongrel fishermen with the bonito, the 
albacore, and the horse-mackerel, the three being 
classed under the generic term ‘St. Helena beef.’ 

To the poorly and monotonously fed seamen of 
long-voyage sailing ships he is, of course, always 
welcome, and some of my pleasantest recollections of 
old sea-days are associated with his capture. Seated 
aloft on the flying-jibboom end, with my line tipped 
with a piece of white rag blowing in a graceful curve 
just beyond the roll of foam roaring from under the 
advancing bows, it was exquisitely delightful to see 
a lithe gorgeous shape spring suddenly upward, seize 
my lure, and commence its useful journey to the 
hungry stomachs of my appreciative shipmates. 
To the joy of capture, of successful sport, was thus 
added the comfort of doing a kindly act, and I could 
even imagine the Dolphin sharing my satisfaction. 


CHAPTER XIX 
THE MACKEREL 


IFFICULT as it is to speak dogmatically upon 
such a subject, especially in view of the some- 
what chaotic condition of our knowledge of 

oceanic ichthyology (hateful term), I feel fairly con- 
fident of my position in calling the Mackerel family 
the largest in the world of fishes. That is, I believe 
that there are more varieties of Mackerel than of any 
other kind of fish, and wider distribution of them, 
unaided as it is by the same set of conditions which 
permit many species of fish inhabiting the profound 
depths of ocean to be almost universal as regards the 
sea. I do not know of any members of the family 
who frequent rivers or lakes. 

The head of the family, and from point of size 
the very king of fishes, the albacore, tufia, or tunny, 
I have already exhaustively dealt with, as also the 
bonito, the skip-jack, and the pilot-fish. So that in 
the following remarks these members of the great 
Mackerel family will, except for by-allusions, be left 
severely alone. But even so, there still remain such 
a sufficient number of fairly well-known varieties to 
be dealt with, as to make it necessary to condense 
the information greatly in order to keep it within 
bounds. 

Naturally the place of honour falls to the Mackerel, 
whose name is a household one among us, and. who 
is always quoted fondly (but with what truth I do not 

256 


Pte A 


sl th 


Taree 


TO Sa pe 


NETTING MACKEREL, 


(To face p. 256. 


The Most Delicate Fish 257 


_ know) as being the subject of special Dominical legisla- 
tion, in common with milk. It is an article of faith 
that milk and Mackerel may be sold on Sunday without 
breaking the law, on account of their non-keeping 
properties; but judging from the scenes always to 
be witnessed in the poorer quarters of London on 
Sunday, where whole streets are given up to vociferous 
trading in any and every kind of article, it would 
seem that laws against commercial Sabbath-breaking 
have been allowed to fall into desuetude. And the one 
article that I can confidently aver that I have never 
seen sold in London on a Sunday is fresh Mackerel. 
The kippered Mackerel of course is sold, with bloaters, 
haddocks, and other merchandise of the ‘ wet and dry’ 
fishmonger of poor neighbourhoods. 

This may perhaps be accounted for by the extreme 
proneness of Mackerel to go ‘bad.’ No fish is more 
liable to sudden taint and the development of ptomaines 
than the Mackerel; under certain atmospheric con- 
ditions two hours are quite sufficient from the time of 
its capture to render it dangerous for eating purposes. 
And what is a great deal worse, the Mackerel may be 
quite unfit for food, but its conditions be unknown 
to even the most careful observer until it is cooked 
and tasted. Then indeed there is no concealment, 
for the taste is horrible and the flesh has become of a 
putty-like consistency. 

It is rather difficult to understand how or why 
the Mackerel as an edible fish has attained to its present 
undoubtedly high degree of popularity among our 
workers. In point of flavour it is far surpassed by 
many other fish, notably by the much cheaper herring, 
’ a fact which is distinctly referable to its rapidity in 
getting stale. A Mackerel freshly caught and cooked 
is a delicious morsel, bearing no resemblance whatever 


17 


260 ~ .The Mackerel 


in the open sea, which hardly seems credible, even in 
view of our ignorance as to where the Coryphaena and 
bonito perform this most indispensable function. I 
have assigned to them the Sargasso weed as a spawning- 
place for several reasons, chief among which is the 
vast amount of varied spawn which is to be found in 
it; but to credit a fish like the Mackerel, which 
appears in such illimitable numbers, with casting its 
ova haphazard upon the ocean with its ever-shifting 
currents, seems a stretch of the scientific imagination 
quite umnreceivable. Moreover, while it might be 
imaginable of, say, the Coryphaena, whose numbers 
are not great as compared with other fish, and who 
never frequent shallow waters, it is not, it cannot be, 
so of the Mackerel, which is never seen at any great 
distance from land, and has its pick of all the most 
favourable spawning grounds as near the surface as 
it needs. | 

Unlike the herring, who never comes near the land, 
except in the multitudinous companionship of the 
school, the Mackerel are fond of roaming about quite 
independently, as if at times the restraint of the school 
galled them, and they needed to run loose for a little 
while, chasing their prey on their own account. These 
independent Mackerel give splendid sport, biting 
readily at a hook baited with a piece of red rag or a 
strip of the silvery skin of a Mackerel’s belly, towed 
through the water at a brisk rate behind a boat. 
A fairly heavy lead is necessary to keep the bait 
sufficiently deep; if towed along the surface, the 
fish will not bite. There is no need for skill in baiting 
the hook, if the strip of skin be two inches long and 
half an inch wide, it is sufficient just to hang it on the 
hook by piercing one end, the fish being so ravenous 
as to gorge hook and all in its spring. These fish 


The Mackerel Guide 201 


taken with the hook always command a higher price 
than those caught in nets, for some curious reason 
which I do not pretend to understand. | 

So magnificently beautiful is the appearance 
of a school of Mackerel on a calm day when they rise 
to the surface in brilliant sunshine, that even the 
most hardened fisherman is moved by it, and if the 
unshaded eye should catch the reflected radiance of 
the congregated millions as they turn, it will feel a 
spasm of pain—the sight is too vivid for comfortable 
vision. Over those closely packed masses range, in 
screaming fussiness, flocks of sea-birds, busily looking 
for smaller fish fleeing before the Mackerel, for it 
must be but a very small individual that can be 
effectually dealt with by a gull or even a cormorant. 

Swimming sedately in front of the school may often 
be seen a quaintly shaped fish, called by the fishermen 
the ‘ Mackerel Guide,’ or Gar-fish. It is a long, slender 
creature, attaining in its full development a length of 
nearly four feet, and the thickness of a man’s fore-arm. 
Its skin, while without the Mackerel markings, has 
the same sheeny iridescence and almost entire absence 
of scales, which seems to mark it, in spite of its dis- 
similarity of form, as one of the Mackerel family. 
But its chief peculiarity is its long, slender bill, like 
like that of a snipe, but furnished with closely set 
rows of needle-like teeth. 

For all its elegance it is but a poorly flavoured 
fish, and though frequently seen in fishmongers’ 
shops is little in demand except asa curiosity. Another 
strange possession of this fish is its b/ue bones, which, 
when the fish is cooked, contrast most strangely with 
the white flesh. Its association with the Mackerel 
must be pure coincidence, for I have seen it in parts 
of the world where, although some members of the 


262 o> The Mackerefs | 


Mackerel family were to be found, as is the casé’almost 
everywhere, there were certainly none’ of the’ fish 
from which the whole family takes its name. ‘I have 
caught the Gar-fish in the West Indies, in Madagascar, 
where there is to be found'a curious variety, having 
only one long mandible, with the mouth on’ the upper 
part of it in the head, like a little trap-door inthe head: 
The largest'specimens I have ever seen were in Zanzibar; 
where, around ‘the guardship'* London,’ they would 
lie lazily sunning themselves, perfectly secure from 
molestation, because the! crew were strictly forbidden 
to meddle with fish lo men § kind, nee iar of chien’ ‘or 
poisoning. 2° 101 
The old naturalists Believed that the Mackerel 
roamed as far afield as does the albacore, very much 
as they imagined the ‘herring to’ do ; but it has’ been 
found that, as with the herring, the Mackerel only 
retires into the deep water off shore for feeding purposes 
at certain seasons of the "year, whence it comes in 
such amazing numbers during the summer. ‘'Occasion- 
ally there are found swimming ‘amicably with the 
ordinary fish a number of’ much larger individuals, 
known as Horse-mackerel, which are so coafse and 
poorly flavoured as'to be almost unfit for food.’ ‘These 
have also’a very bad reputation, with what reason ‘as 
far as our coasts are concerned I’ am unable to say, 
for being poisonous, as has’ also ‘the delicate’ little 
fish known as’ the Lady Mackerel, a ‘creature ‘pretty 
enough to be made a pet! of) like goldfish. ' The Hott 
mackerel of St. Helena and certain West Indian ports 
is, I know, poisonous, and should never be €aten ; 
but this must be attributable to itsfood) © 9) "7 
I would here remark in passing’ that, while all raw 
fishand meat is susceptible of being poisoned by the 
direct rays of the tropical mdon, the’ Mackerel family 


The Baleful Moon 263 


aré) exceptionally so, I have known, for instance, a 
bonito hung up under «a boat where the moon’s rays 
could not possibly have reached it for longer than 
an hour, to become utterly unfit for food, having a 
most foul taste, while it smelt as fresh as ever. This 
poisonous action of the moon upon raw flesh or fish is 
derided by some as being a fable, as also is the painful 
affliction known, to seamen as moon-blindness; but 
there are certainly no. two facts better known to, 
or more: firmly established: sega deep-water sailors 
than these. 

' The Mackerel is fairly bientifal on the American 

coasts, ‘though not in such amazing numbers as over 
here. Not that they need it, having such stupendous 
abundance of other fish. 
_/ It is there salted down in kits and sent all over 
the country; but salted Mackerel needs an American 
palate, educated to the flavour of brine, to appreciate 
it.. I have before noted how greedily all the Mackerel 
family absorb salt, making it almost impossible, 
once the salt has entered the tissues of the fish, to 
extract it again so as to make the fish eatable. But, 
after all, that is purely a’'matter of taste, and it is 
certain that salted Mackerel are in high favour with 
our cousins oversea. 

And now we come to the ipcenkidexation of the 
giant’ Mackerel known as the Sword-fish, or Lance-fish, 
as he should more properly be ‘called, since the bone 
of the upper jaw which is elongated into a weapon is 
rounded, and tapering to a point, much more like a 
lance than is-the flat weapon known as a sword. It 
is somewhat of a relief to take up’ the history of a 
creature, with some individuality, after’ dealing: with 
fish .that congregate in countless: millions like the 
herrings and mackerel, and certainly among all fish 


264 The Mackerel 


there are none whose lives are more romantic than that 
of the great Xipmas. It must be premised that there 
areseveral varieties of Xipiias ranging the oceans of the 
world, but the one I am best acquainted with is the 
Indian Ocean variety, of which a splendid specimen 
may be seen in the fish gallery at the Natural History 
Museum at South Kensington. 

The Sword-fish, whose catching is quite a recognised 
industry on the New England Coast, is a dull-hued 
monster, ranging from one to two hundredweight, 
and frequenting those waters in fairly large numbers. 
He is taken by harpooning, the striker standing in 
a little ‘ pulpit’ erected on the extreme point of the 
bow. It is good sport, if a bit rough, but a hard and 
precarious way of getting a living. As far as I am 
aware this is the only part of the world where the 
pursuit of the Sword-fish is engaged in regularly and 
systematically, everywhere else the giant mackerel 
being left severely alone, to pursue his triumphant 
way among the sea people, inspiring a terror among 
them which he can never feel, for there are none to 
make him afraid. 

By reason of the terrible weapon he carries before 
him, and his amazing speed and dexterity in using 
it, he has always been the veritable ruler of all deep-sea 
fish, and the ruthless slayer of even the sea-shouldering 
whale. Only the sperm whale proves too doughty a 
foe for him to attack lightly, although I believe there 
are instances on record where he has successfully 
attacked cachalot cows. Before passing on to a brief 
consideration of the career of a typical Xiphias, I 
would like to say that my reason for calling the albacore 
the king of the deep-sea fish was on account of his 
size, as well as number and universality of range. 
There is no doubt that in courage and agility the 


The Birthplace of Xiphias 265 


Xiphias is master of even the albacore, though in 
average size much inferior. The shark again, while 
far superior to the albacore in point of size, is in the 
first place hardly to be classed with fish proper, being 
rather an intermediary between mammal and fish. 
At any rate I still hold the albacore the king of all 
fish, while purposing to do full justice to the claims 
of the Xiphias. 

To a sheltered nook of the Maldive Island reef 
bases there entered on a day a little company of Sword- 
fish, and sauntering inquisitively around, seemed to 
survey with deepest interest every cranny of the 
wonderful place. It was a triangular area of dazzling 
white sand, almost exactly level, about two acres 
in extent and buttressed on all sides except just at the 
apex of the triangle, by almost vertical walls of live 
coral. Its floor was about twenty fathoms below 
the surface, which, shut in from the breakers by massive 
ramparts of rock, received, as if on a sapphire mirror, 
the rays of the tropical sun, and transmitted them in 
all lovely hues down to the silvern floor. Only a few 
small fish flitted stealthily to and fro over the smooth 
sand, or dodged in or out of the interstices of the coral, 
on the never-ending hunt for food. But when they 
saw the majestic forms of the Sword-fish come gliding 
in they fled, anywhere out of that dread com- 
pany, whose presence spelt death to them if they 
remained. 

The new-comers were twelve in number, ten females 
and two males, and having completed their leisurely 
survey of the place and finding it apparently well 
_ suited to their purpose, they glided gently over the 
bottom, waving their broad pectoral and ventral fins 
gently, as if they were still further smoothing the 
white sand. Having apparently settled matters to 


206 « »« The Mackerel oo 


their liking, the deposition of the ova began, and was 
carried on intermittently for the best part of two days, 
the male fish apparently keeping severe guard, and 
maintaining a strict supervision over all the proceedings. 
At last the task was over, the females languidly made 
for the exit, while the males lingered over the spots 
which the females ‘had! quitted, as if loth to leave them, 
until, as if alarmed at the prospect of losing «touch 
with their consorts, the two great fish gave each a 
sweep or two in the cleat water with their tails, and shot 
through the entrance between the: towering’ bastions 
- of rock as arrows fleefrom the bow. 9) ©)" > 90 
In an hour they had: rejoinedthe females, guided 
by unerring instinct in their track, and placing them- 
selves at the head: of the little company sped onward 
in search of food, their long fast having made them ~ 
furious with hunger. ‘Presently they fell im witha 
great school of bonito, who, taken by surprise, became 
utterly demoralised with fear, and huddling together 
in one compact mass permitted the ravenous monsters 
to'dash again and again into their midst, with such 
velocity as to split sometimes four bodies into fragments 
at one blow. Such fragments: were not immediately 
devoured, but when the slaughter was over the Sword- 
fish swam hither and thither, gorging’ themselves: in 
leisurely fashion ' upon the .dismembered’ bodies of 
their cousins, until, surfeited, they turned away and 
left the befouled area to a shoal of small scavengers, — 
which ‘had during» the great tena inept respectfully — 
at a distance. as owls bing 
But now let us weir to the spawning ground. — 
There: upon the speckless floor of sand lay evenly 
spread countless |thousands of eggs, each large asoa 
marrowfat pea, and almost invisible by reason of their 
pearly ‘transparency. The dark spot’ in’ each, that 


The Perils of the Ova 267 


should have made them visible, was in every case in 
the lower half of the pearly globule, which was’ half 
hidden in the soft sand. Very gently the warm current 
glided over them, so gently that no ripple, even the 
faintest, disturbed their repose or the fecundating opera- 
tions going on within’ them: / But here.‘and’ there a 
tiny fish almost matching’ the sand in ‘colourlessness 
swam. invisibly along the ‘pearly rows, culling now 
and then a delightful morsel'in the shape of an ovule 
a little plumper than its’ neighbours. And though 
these ghostly visitors were very small their appetite 
was amazingly developed, ‘for each of them was 
responsible for the disappearance of some dozens of 
eggs in the course of an hour or two’s swim, which, 
considering that none of the depredators were more 
than six inches long, was evidence of extreme voracity. 
Now and then a bright shadow would glide phantom- 
like through the clear space, apparently just evolved 
out of nothingness, there was a’ moment’s contact 
between it and one of the egg-eaters, and, presto, 
the latter had disappeared, as does a bubble when it 
bursts. And thus the balance of Nature was adjusted, 
for this is only a specimen of the constant interchange 
of commodities going on. 

The enemies of the hatching eggs were, indeed, 
so numerous even in this sequestered spot, that as the 
days went by their numbers dwindled to such an extent 
that it seemed almost an impossibility that any of 
them: should survive till the emetgence of the fry. 
Even the tiny crabs, which are) ubiquitous, although 
some of them were less than half an inch across the 
carapace, were continually employed in lugging away 
the savoury ‘morsels to their home crannies beneath 
the rocks, like ants: carrying away provender for 
storage. They were frequently sucked in, egg and all, 


208 The Mackerel 


by wandering fish during these predatory journeys, 
but their exit from one stage of usefulness into another 
was so sudden and easy that no one could connect 
any idea of tragedy with it. 

Still, in spite of all the influences that were ro asnngial 
against them, and as a proof of their amazing numbers, 
there came a day when thousands of tiny fish suddenly 
appeared, as if at a given signal, each carrying with 
it attached by a cord the yolk of the egg it had just 
quitted, upon which it would subsist for the next 
forty-eight hours. And never during its career was 
the fish in such danger of sudden extinction as now, 
when, about in full view of hungry enemies, the attached 
yolk added to its conspicuousness and hampered its 
movements, and it seemed a manifest impossibility 
for it to escape. Certainly the thinning out of the 
young Sword-fish now reached its most acute stage, 
for not one in a hundred survived. Yet all this 
selection and survival of the fittest had been arranged 
with unerring wisdom and accuracy—not one of those 
tiny creatures was devoured without its going being 
according to plan. 

In what out-of-the-way holes and corners the 
young fry spent their early days, upon what tiny 
morsels of food they fed and grew strong, and what 
amazing and multitudinous hairbreadth escapes they 
had before attaining to the moderate size of one foot 
in length—all this proportion of their life history is 
hidden from us. When next we meet with them they 
have grown sturdy, predaceous and swift. Although 
only a foot or so long, they have already developed 
many of the qualities which will presently make them 
the undoubted rulers of the fishy world, yet at this 
age they have, allied to their undoubted ferocity, 
a large amount of caution which prevents them ail 


Pat. "ees i he 8 a - 


The Young Warrior 269 


allowing another species of fish larger than themselves, 
and therefore a possible enemy, to come too near. 
Already they have taken to that semi-independent 
mode of life which is the preparation for their full- 
grown loneliness—they do not associate with one 
another closely, although there are usually a goodly 
company of them within communicating distance of 
each other. Henceforward their progress towards 
maturity is rapid. Each day sees them essaying 
some new feat of endurance, some fresh act of aggression 


towards other fish, which gains for them, besides 


accelerated growth, increasing confidence in their own 
wonderful powers, such as nothing but the exercise 
of those powers can give. 

It is now time to single out one splendid young 
specimen from the flock. He is a yard in length, 
exclusive of his sword, which protrudes from his upper 
jaw about nine inches. Every fibre of his comely 
body is surcharged with nervous energy—to watch 
him balanced in the still blue, every fin extended but 
without a suspicion of movement, even of life, save 
in the glare of the brilliant eyes or the glowing hues 
of the body, is to gain a great idea of latent power. 
No ancient warrior was ever uplifted with haughtier 
pride in his battle plumes than X7fhias in his magnifi- 
cent dorsal-fin, which stands erect, blazing with 
brightest blue, from his head to his tail. It will be 
noticed that now he has entirely forsaken, as disdaining 
it, the shelter of intricate reefs, no longer does he 
creep warily, at several fathoms’ depth, from one point 
of refuge to another. No, at last he has come out in 
the open prepared to assert his position before all 


his world, impelled thereto by an innate force, of which 


he knows nothing save its effect upon him. 
As he lies there apparently immobile, there is 


270 » The Mackerel | 


communicated to him by a series of vibrations the 
presence near at handof some creatures,almost certainly 
enemies, but possibly victims. An almost impercepti- 
ble flash of the beautiful tail,'a quiver of all the fins, 
and like a gleam of light he has sped forward to see. 
It is.a little band of porpoises, ‘perfectly harmless to 
fish like himself, but the native blood-thirst is awak- 
ened, the lithe tail sweeps scythe-like from side to 
side, and in a moment he has launched himself at the 
flat black flank of a. sea-pig, in which his sword buries 
itself up to hiseyes nearly. With a perfectly indescrib- 
able, movement, he sterns clear, describes a great 
circle, and, in spite of the great speed of the terrified 
and deeply wounded mammal, again buries his weapon 
deep in its vitals. But then, upon the slackening of 
the porpoise’s speed consequent upon the tremendous 
drain of blood; the rest of the sea-pigs swarm round, 

made ravenous by the smell, the sight, the taste of 
blood. And soon, there is a horrible cannibal feast 
going on, brother tearing brother into fragments, 
while like some. destroying demon the infuriated 
Xtphias wheels and, stabs.incessantly without obtaining 
any of the spoil for himself, except a taste of the blood, | 
which only seems to increase his hunger. 

That onslaught was a great mistake, sioalelice 
as it did such a, waste -of energy without any — 
resultant, reward. But the young Sword-fish can — 
only learn by the action of the twin teachers of ex- 
perience and instinct, and, \the lesson just received 
is in nowise. lost, In future, except for sheer love — 
of destruction, he, will not attack such creatures’ as 
he cannot devour., So| for a long time he ranges the — 
warm tropical seas proudly slaying and devouring all — 
that he needs to assist him injhis:rapid development, — 
until,at last we behold him, eighteen feet long, with a 


The Thirst for Blood 271 


weight of four hundred pounds and a sword nearly 
two feet in length. | 

‘He is now. practically immune from’ pursuit or 
darnage by any of the deep-sea folk, unless he sleep 
and let the wily shark slip up from beneath and snatch 
a ghastly ‘mouthful from his middle. Or the saw-fish 
glide along and rip him from end to end. ‘But while 
these dangers are very real, they areseldom experienced. 
As.a rule, the watchfulness and wakefulness of such 
a, sea, denizen, as the: Sword-fish secures him from 
surprise. _And)the. shark, no matter how hungry, 
must be quite sure of his: prey before venturing his 
cewersly! carcase in such an enterprise. 

As the, Xiphias grows to his full ‘size he’ becomes 
saiieeahinalia valiant; Unlike most of the sea people, 
who only hunt for food, and that obtained keep peace, 
the Sword-fish longs,; apparently with irresistible 
desire, for some! foe worthy ‘of his attack: This it 
is that impels him to launch himself like some living 
torpedo at the vast bulk of the! whale, for the sheer 
savage’ delight of stabbing viciously again and yet 
again ati the yielding living mass before him, even if, 
as in the case of the enormous bowhead, with its two 
feet. thickness. of, blubber, he cannot draw blood. 
To bear away, impaled by one swift and: terrible blow, 
the newly born ‘calf from beneath its mother’s: pro- 
tecting arm is-a supreme, delight, and one too that 
yields. solid results in the shape of food; for the tender 
body of a young. whale is easily divided by repeated 
blows ofthe sword. 

But this fiercely aggressive spirit has its dcawbaéks 
too. As, for instance, when the Xtphias' attacks a 
’ sperm ‘whale, and, meeting the impervious mass of 
the. head, rebounds helplessly; to be caught before 
recovery between the huge mammal’s: lethal jaws 


272 _ The Mackerel 


and devoured. Or, when hurling itself against the 
hull of some becalmed ship, it falls, with skull shattered 
to fragments against the steel, by the force of that 
tremendous impact. That this is no freak of the 
imagination may be proved by an examination of the 
sword of a Xiphias shown in the Natural History 
Museum of London, which is driven eighteen inches 
through solid oak planking and beam. It needs 
little calculation to show what the effect upon the 
fish would have been had that ship been of steel instead 
of oak. And there is very little doubt that such an 
occurrence is common enough, one of the few ways 
in which the sword-fish comes by his end, except 
by reason of his failing powers. Then, indeed, the 
scavengers of the deep, swift to note the waning forces 
of their great enemy, make a determined onslaught 
upon him and save him the misery of a lingering old 
age. This latter, it may be remarked, seldom falls to 
the lot of any deep-sea citizen. Even an aged cachalot, 
we may assume, is not allowed to die of senile decay. 

A pleasant little member of the mackerel family, 
called the Pomfret or Brama, has always been an 
especial favourite of mine. The peculiarity about 
them is that they only make their appearance near 
a vessel in a calm. In the profoundest solitudes 
and depths of ocean these essentially sociable little 
fish, having suddenly been materialised as it were 
out of the surrounding apparently vacant blue, will 
presently be discovered clinging closely to the side 
of the ship, generally about the run and around the 
rudder. They will occasionally venture alongside 
as far as the bow, if the ship be making no headway 
at all and the sea be like glass, but they exhibit the 
utmost unwillingness to leave the side of the ship 
for a single moment. . 


iio ih ON to 


HORSE MACKEREL AND GARFISH, 4 } 
(To face p. 2736 > 4 


The Most Sociable Fish 273 


Whether they come for protection, or food, or both, 
I have no means of knowing, but their appearance 
so far from land and over such profound depths is 
cettainly very curious. They take a bait of meat 
readily and are very sweet eating, although I never 
caught one larger than half a pound weight. In 
shape they resemble a perch, but, as with mackerel, 
there is an almost total absence of scales and, as with 
the albacore, there are some horny conical little plates 
arranged along the posterior third of the lateral line. 
All around Australasia there are to be found congeners 
of this little fish, called by sailors Cavallé. They grow 
to a large size compared with the Brama, being often 
caught twenty-five pounds in weight. Also many of 
them are more shield-like—wider, that is, in proportion 
to their length. They are almost entirely silvern in 
colour, and the effect when, in hauling one up on a 
brilliantly sunny day, it suddenly turns its broadside 
to the sun is perfectly dazzling to the eyes. They 
are a splendidly game fish, as well as being very good 
eating. 

Of the Echineis Remora, or Sucking-fish, of the 
mackerel tribe, I cannot speak positively. I have 
never seen one, although of the shark-like sucking- 
fish I have seen many hundreds and caught many 
scores. According to ichthyologists, however, it is 
fairly plentiful and acts in precisely the same way 
as does the Remora, of which I have written before 
at considerable length. 

It must not be imagined, because of the con- 
clusion of this chapter, that I have dealt in any way 
exhaustively with the Scombridae. As I premised, 
’ only a few fairly well-known specimens could be dealt 
with in the space at my disposal, while the family is 
the largest of all known in the mighty ocean. 


18 


CHAPTER XX 
CoD 


HE Cod family of the Deep-Sea People is, with 
scarcely a doubt, the most valuable to mankind 
of any. Whether we consider its readiness to 

be caught, in spite of the deep and stormy seas which 
it inhabits, the vast range of its habitat, which is 
almost co-extensive with the shores tenanted by the 
white race, the ease with which it may be cured for 
keeping, and the esteem in which it is held by the 
dwellers in all Roman Catholic countries, or study 
the romantic character of the fishery, we must find 
the natural history of the Cod of absorbing interest. 
And that in spite of the fact that the Cod itself is by 
no means a romantic fish. He is not beautiful by 
any means, his flesh, though white and flaky, and 
under proper treatment sufficiently firm, has not the 
flavour possessed by many other of our edible fishes. 
His habits are regular, he is most accommodating in 
the matter of food, and as to what he will take as bait 
on a hook—I have caught Cod in New Zealand for 
experiment with a lump of coal tied to a piece of spun 
yarn. On all of which accounts the Gadidae family 
have claims upon our notice, which are not surpassed 
by those of any other inhabitants of the deep and 
wide sea. Dr. Hartwig ranks the Cod next in impor- 
tance to the herring in its importance to man, but 
one may be permitted to disagree with him, without 
questioning his great authority and wide research. 
274 


The Chief Food Fish 275 


At any rate, I have ventured to put the Cod first, 
and firmly believe that I am justified in so doing. 

To the Cod family belong also the Haddock, the 
Whiting, the Ling, the Pollock, and the Rocklings, 
all valuable food fishes, but especially the Haddock, 
which, in its smoked form, runs the smoked herring 
very closely in its hold on popular favour in our own 
country. Naturalists also include the Hake, and 
I suppose they are right, although for my part I fail 
to see anything about a Hake which can give him a 
claim to any relationship with the Cod, and therefore 
shall refuse to say anything about him here. 

The principal and most valuable characteristic 
of the Cod is its amazing fecundity. It has been 
calculated that a single fish will deposit nine millions of 
eggs, a number which in its vastness simply bewilders 
us, for we cannot at all realise what such a mighty 
host means. Yet so numerous are the natural checks 
placed upon the too rapid increase of the Cod, that 
there are never too many for the seas they frequent 
to contain and provide for; in fact, it is safe to guess 
that out of those nine millions of eggs probably not 
more than as many tens attain to maturity. Around 
the British coasts are favourite breeding grounds 
of the Cod, where in comparatively shallow waters 
he runs the gauntlet of his countless foes, escaping 
in such numbers as to make the Cod-fishery a lucrative 
form of the fishing industry. 
; But nearly all Cod and codlings caught on our 
coasts come to market to be sold fresh, except in Passion 
Week, when every fishmonger’s shop becomes suddenly 
full of wet salted Cod temptingly folded inside out 
and garnished with lemons. The Cod lends itself 
amicably also to keeping fresh on ice, although it 
must be admitted that between Cod freshly caught 


270 ae Cod 


and Cod that has been kept fresh in ice for some days 
there is a vast difference, even if people who have 
never been in a position to taste both are exceedingly 
sceptical of the fact. 

Judging from what we are permitted to see of 
his manner of living when young and in shallow waters, 
the Cod passes a very pleasant, peaceful time of it. 
He is troubled by no problems of life, nor does he 
ever need to exert himself to obtain food. Plenty of 
it always seems to come his way, and when one kind 
is exhausted he turns to another, or leisurely strolls 
off, a few billions at a time, to another feeding ground. 
On the South Coast of England during the autumn 
codling are very plentiful ; fishing in the most primitive 
sailor-fashion, I have caught off the North Foreland 
in an afternoon twenty dozen, every one of which 
had its maw literally crammed with little crabs, making 
me wonder at what I could see must be the amazing 
numbers of these well-known crustacea. 

But sporting fishermen disdain the Cod; he gives 
no sport. No finesse is needed to hook him, rather 
considerable delicacy of touch and quickness of striking 
is required unless the fisherman does not mind ex- 
tricating his hook from the bottom of every fish’s 
stomach. So voracious are they that they just gorge 
the bait, hook and all; they do not nibble. And when 
they are hooked, except for a heavy, lumpish pulling 
as they are hauled upward, they make no play, which 
is just what renders them so welcome to the fisherman 
with his long-lines, trawl-lines, or bulters, as they are 
indifferently called, according to the place where they 
are used. 

As the fish mature they move off shore into deeper 
water, until fishing for them becomes heavy labour. 
It is a severe tax upon the strongest physique to be 


Most Easily Caught 277 


continually hauling up heavy fish from depths of from 
two to four hundred feet. And therefore the long- 
line system of fishing is welcomed. It consists in 
having a line, say, a thousand feet in length, with a 
hook snooded on by a short tail about every three 
feet. These hooks are all baited, and the line is paid 
out from a boat which is rowed slowly along until 
the line is stretched along the bottom, both ends 
being held in position by a buoy at the top of the 
water and an anchor or sinker at the bottom. After 
a certain time has elapsed, which varies according 
to circumstances, the line is hauled in and the hooked 
fish, who, apparently finding themselves unable to 
get away, have just accepted the situation with philo- 
sophic ‘Calm and ceased to struggle, are disengaged 
and dropped into the boat. Then the line is re-baited 
and set again, while the boat hurries back to the smack 
to get the catch packed in ice so that it shall not spoil. 

But in spite of the marvellously prolific character 
of the Cod, and the great extent of sea around our 
coasts which is exactly fitted to its needs, there are 
many and bitter complaints heard among the fisher- 
men of the grave falling off in supply, and a general 
idea that legislation is needed to conserve the fish 
or it will be exterminated. Now it ought to be, I 
think, perfectly clear that, in the case of such fish as 
Cod, herring, or mackerel, the utmost efforts of which 
man is capable can have no appreciable effect in re- 
ducing the numbers of the fish available for catching. 
Especially when it is remembered what incalculable 
myriads of these fish are eaten by their natural enemies 
in the sea, numbers to which man’s paltry toll are 
but as it were the stragglers from the main army. 
That the scarcity of Cod around our coast is not, 
cannot be, due to over-fishing seems so certain as to 


278 Cod 


hardly require stating, yet the fact remains of the 
scarcity, and it needs to be accounted for in some 
other ways, although most probably if we did account 
for it we should find ourselves powerless to prevent 
its increase. | 

On the other hand, judging by what is to be seen 
on any morning at Grimsby or Billingsgate during 
the season, the supply of Haddock, first cousin to 
the Cod, shows no sign whatever of diminution. The 
Haddock comes to London almost direct from the 
sea, whence he is netted by trawls in immense numbers, 
in such a manner as to make one feel on witnessing 
the arrival and dispersal of a consignment as if they 
never wished to taste the fish again. It is, like all the 
Cod family, of a naturally slimy character? almost 
as much so really as the eel, but on its first appearance 
from the sea, multitudinously squirming in the pouch 
of the great trawl net, shows no trace of unpleasant 
appearance. But then it is dumped into the hold 
of the vessel and almost at once loses its cleanly grey 
and silver, exchanging it for a dull, greasy-looking 
neutral tint. Transferred from the hold of the vessel 
into iron tanks each holding a couple of tons or so, 
two of which just fit on a flat railway truck, it is whisked 
off at full goods speed to Billingsgate, undergoing 
on the journey a further process of deterioration, 
aided by the melting of the rough dirty ice with which 
it is plentifully mixed. 

At Billingsgate it is sold by auction in the open 
street outside the Gustom House to crowds of waiting 
fishmongers., Immediately a purchase is made, men, 
who are hardly distinguishable, by reason of filth 
and slime, except by their size, from the fish they 
stand knee deep in, shovel the mass of fish into the 
buyer’s cart which is backed up to the wain bearing 


The Great Home of the Cod 279 


the tanks. When the cart is loaded (it looks a singu- 
larly disgusting cargo) the purchaser rattles off with 
it to his shop, and in due time the dreadfully dirty 
mass of fish passes through a series of operations 
in back premises, often mere hovels a few feet square, 
and reappears as windrows of bright ‘smoked ’addicks’ 
on the sloping boards of the front shop. But the 
intermediate process does not bear thinking about, 
if we would ever eat smoked Haddock again in 
comfort. 

But to find the Cod in all his glory it is necessary 
to cross the Atlantic. On the north-east coasts of 
the United States and right along the Nova Scotian 
littoral are found great areas of comparatively shallow 
sea, the broad Atlantic here allowing the land to rise 
to within less than a dozen fathoms of the surface 
in many places, and in one, the terrible Sable Island, 
which has well been named an ocean graveyard, a long 
snarling bank rises some few feet above the surface 
and constitutes one of the chief dangers of the stormy 
Nova Scotian coast.. These banks vary in area from 
a tiny patch of some ten or fifteen square miles to the 
immense breadths of the Grand Bank off Newfound- 
land, as large as that great island, and at one spot 
culminating in the world famous Virgin Rocks which 
break in a gale of wind, so nearly do they approach 
to the surface. I.do not know that any calculation 
has ever been made of the aggregate area of all these 
North American banks, but it must be some thousands 
of square miles. And over the whole of them, varying 
of course according to season, roam the placid Cod in 
almost undisputed possession of the greatest and most 
prolific fishing grounds in the whole world. Of course 
other fish are found around there too, the lordly halibut 
for instance, but as the proportion of any other fish 


280 Cod 


to Cod is only about one in a thousand it is too small 
to be taken into account. 

Now the Cod is manifestly not an adventurous 
fish. Like some domestic animals, he conceives it 
to be his primary duty to get fat, and to that duty 
he gives all his powers. But getting fat presupposes 
an abundance of easily obtained food. And here, if 
anywhere in the world, it is to be found. Squid; 
how could I ever have asked the question: ‘ Why 
the squid?’ As well ask why grass, hay, mangolds, 
or any of the herbs and roots upon which our domestic 
animals raised for food are fed. But their food has 
to be provided for them by us, and sometimes the 
providing thereof presents a very serious problem 
when the elements are unpropitious, necessitating 
the operations of commerce on a gigantic scale. But 
the squid, at certain seasons, appear from their mys- 
terious breeding places in the unsearchable recesses 
of ocean in numbers like the grains of sand on the sea- 
shore for multitude, and spread their countless myriads 
over these ocean banks just where the Cod can gulp 
them down at its leisure. Also, and incidentally, the 
squid provides the fisherman with his best bait, for 
a piece of tough tentacle properly impaled upon a 
hook is not easily dislodged, and in the hands of an 
experienced fisherman such a bait will serve for the 
capture of several fish, no mean advantage in point 
of time when the Cod are biting well. 

But so vast are the armies of the Cod that even 
that mass of squid is presently devoured, all except 
those who are, one would say, miraculously preserved 
to reproduce the needed supply for next season. Long 
before the pinch of hunger can be felt by the Cod, 
however, comes the capelin, beautiful little fish (Salmo 
arcticus) which appear to be the fry of some large 


Marvels of the Unseen 281 


fish that is so prolific that its surplus billions must 
needs come here to be disposed of, lest they should 
become too numerous and create a famine in the sea. 
Moving in almost solid masses across the banks in 
certain given directions, feeding themselves upon the 
myriads of minor creatures with which the sea is 
everywhere teeming, they are met by the Cod, who 
quietly work their way through the shoals eating, 
eating, ever eating. 

What a wonderful sight it must be, could anybody 
but witness it, that mass of life, those square miles 
of closely arrayed food fishes moving slowly from 
point to point over the swarming surfaces of those 
submarine plateaux! Conceive, if you can, how in- 
finitesimally small, in comparison with the area in- 
habited by the Cod, is the space occupied by the whole 
of the fishing fleet, would be the room taken up by 
all the fishing fleets of the world could they be collected 
there. As for the diminution in their numbers made 
by man, it is so trivial by comparison with those 
numbers, nay by comparison with the toll levied upon 
them by enemies of their own sphere, that it is not 
worth taking into account. For the area covered 
by the hosts of fish is so great, and the point fished 
by even a fleet of vessels is so infinitely small by com- 
parison, that the capture of any at all shows how closely 
crowded they must be down there in the unseen. 
And if the united catch of all the fleet for one year 
were put together it would probably be less than the 
number of fish swimming at any given time during 
the season within the area of one square mile. 

The * Bank’ fishery, as it is called, is an intensely 
romantic, highly dangerous and terribly hard calling. 
Readers of Captains Courageous will probably have 
realised that to the full, as far as reading vivid descrip- 


282 Cod 


tion of a thing can make it real to one’s senses. But 
I very much doubt whether it is possible to make 
any landsman realise what it means to ride at anchor 
in the open ocean far out of sight of land, groping in 
the unseen by the aid of what becomes, as in Disko 
Troop, a real instinct, for a dearly won livelihood. 
How can comfortable people ashore realise what it 
means to be shut up in a tiny vessel, anchored out at 
sea in the track of the swift, mighty, ocean-going 
steamships ?. Even on the clearest, most beautiful 
night the little schooner, with her glimmering riding 
light in the fore rigging, is such a tiny speck upon 
the great lonely sea. But when the dense white veil 
of the fog closes down in eddies of thickest cloud, so 
that the bow of the little craft is not visible from her 
stern, the sense of loneliness and of danger becomes 
almost unbearably heightened. 

And strangely enough, whereas when it was clear 
the ocean looked so wide that the chances of one vessel 
meeting another to do her harm, seemed almost 
impossibly remote, in the smother of the fog it is 
almost equally impossible to avoid the conclusion 
that your vessel, like a magnet, will draw the ocean 
greyhound down upon you, and sweep you in one 
age-long minute of agony out of the world of being. 
Yes, it is an adventurous life, and a splendid set of 
men. are those who lead it. 

I have never been more astonished at the difference 
between my preconceived notions and the reality, 
than I was when, on a visit to Gloucester, Massachusetts, 
the metropolis of the Cod-fishing industry, I, saw the 
fishermen ashore. Clean, well, even fashionably 
dressed, gentlemanly, ‘stalwart men. Perhaps, I. was 
fortunate in coming across a picked lot,-but there 
they were, looking as unlike the conventional fisherman 


The Vast Export of Cod 283 


as possible. One could hardly picture them groping 
through the growling waves in their tiny dories on the 
banks while laying ‘their trawls, or covered with 
blood and slime, knee-deep in Cod at the gutting 
and splitting, or down in the stifling hold, dimly lighted 
by one feeble lamp, packing the cleaned and boned 
fish in layers of salt, so closely that when full she rides 
almost as deep as if coal-laden. 

For these Cod are not caught for immediate use, 
nor is the fisherman’s toil confined to luring them 
from their deep-sea feeding grounds into the well of 
his vessel or her ice-boxes. He must needs prepare 
his catch for the first stage of their long journeys 
ere they reach their legitimate goal in people’s stomachs 
all over the world. Time was, and that not so very 
long ago, when the Cod on reaching port were dried 
and sorted according to size and quality, then sent 
to their various destinations packed in barrels or even 
in loose crates. 

From this method there was no change. It pro- 
duced the bacallao beloved of the Spanish-speaking 
people and sent to them all over the vast continent 
of South America as well as to the mother country 
of Spain. It found great acceptance, even in poor 
Italy, whose hungry masses can ill afford to buy 
imported food except at very low rates. The smallest, 
meanest of the catch, little fish of half-a-pound to 
two pounds, went to the West Indies to be bought in 
pennyworths by the negroes. Some even came to 
Ireland, with the Atlantic rife with fish at her doors. 
So great was the export trade in dried salt Cod. 

‘But now a cleaner, tastier development of the 
traffic has sprung up. Instead of making the succulent 
fish look like slabs of dirty wood, high-smelling and 
salt as brine itself, the fish is taken from the hold of 


284 Cod 


the vessel, washed, dried so that it does not drip; 
that is all. It is carefully freed from bone (the sea 
process only ridding it of the main bones), cut into 
neat squares of meat that have no skin or any particle 
of uneatable matter attached to them. A number, say 
six, of these squares are pressed together, are neatly 
fastened with string, packed in a pretty parcel and, 
behold, the clean, newly caught, lightly salted Cod 
is ready for transportation among the seventy million 
people of the United States, most of whom are exceed- 
ingly fond of ‘ Cod-fish balls ’ (made of fish and potato 
and fried brown) for breakfast. So that now only 
the inferior fish not considered good enough for home 
consumption is exported. 

Practically nothing is wasted of the Cod. Even 
the offal which is flung overboard goes to nourish those 
that remain to be caught perchance some other day, 
so that it cannot be said to go unutilised. But such 
an immensely valuable product as cod-liver oil needs 
only mentioning as one of the greatest gifts the ocean 
makes to ailing mankind—a specific in wasting dis- 
eases that has no equal. Even the swim bladders 
and tongues of the fish are saved, and, salted down 
in ‘ kits’ (little tubs), are sent all over America. They 
look, before cooking, like pieces of wet white kid, and 
when ready for table are lumps of glutinous jelly, 
which need some getting used to by strangers before 
they can be eaten with comfort. But they are highly 
esteemed in America, and with reason, for they are, 
without doubt, a most nourishing and economical 
food. They are much too salt for British palates, 
but the average American loves his food as salt as 
brine, and so they just suit. 

It may seem unfair of me to have made no mention 
of the great share which Canada and Newfoundland 


The Southern Cod Banks 285 


have in this amazing harvest of the sea, but no neglect 
is intended or imagined. It is one of the principal 
businesses in many small coast towns, and without 
the Cod no one can guess what would become of the 
hardly used Newfoundland fishermen. That much- 
neglected colony of ours has many grievances, but 
one of the chief is that, situated in the very middle 
of the most valuable fishery in the world, she sees 
the best part of it taken away from her by others, 
and she is compelled to bear upon her flanks the open 
sore of a French colony, whose reckless inhabitants 
are a positive menace to her interests, whose behaviour 
is of the worst, and who apparently cannot be removed 
by any international amenities whatever.* 

It is a far cry from Newfoundland to the Cape of 
Good Hope for us, but not for the distribution of fish. 
For off the Cape of Agulhas (which is the southernmost 
point of Africa, and not, as is popularly supposed, 
the Cape of Good Hope) and to the eastward of it, 
there is a plateau rising from the sea-bed to within 
thirty and sixty fathoms of the surface, nearly ten 
thousand square miles in area. This is known as the 
Agulhas Bank, and is the chosen resort of Cod almost 
exactly similar to those caught on the Grand Bank 
of Newfoundland. 

But whereas one place is the scene of one of the 
most lucrative fisheries in the world, the other is turned 
to no account whatever. When people talk as they 
do occasionally about the populations of the world 
outgrowing the food supply, they really should pause 
and think a little while. It is interesting to see how 
little comparatively of the world’s possibilities in the 

* Since the publication of the first edition of this book, I 


am happy to say that the open sore of St. Pierre Miquelon 
has been removed from Newfoundland by diplomacy. 


286 Cod 


way of feeding mankind have yet been dealt with, and 
also how prodigally man wastes Nature’s bountiful 
gifts. Here, in this easily accessible portion of the 
sea, where the weather is far more temperate than 
off Newfoundland, although the gales and waves are, 
if anything, more severe, there are fish enough to 
feed the whole of the European population once or 
twice every week of the year. 

And they are absolutely unmolested by man. 
We really cannot take into account the infrequent 
sailing ships briefly becalmed on the bank, whose 
crew hurriedly snatch a sample of this ocean wealth 
as they drift homeward. I vividly remember the 
last time but one that I rounded Cape Agulhas, when 
I was second mate of a large Liverpool ship, the 
‘ Britannia.’ We were crossing the bank when, during 
my watch, from midnight till 4 a.m., it fell a stark 
calm. In anticipation of its doing so I had bent three 
hooks on to the deep-sea lead line, to which I had 
attached the hand lead of seven pounds. I baited the 
hooks with fat pork, and as soon as the vessel’s way 
ceased I dropped the line. I got bottom at sixty-five 
fathoms, and only five minutes after felt a splendid 
tugging at the line. The night being very cold I 
had a heavy coat on, but before I got my fish on board, 
I was streaming with sweat. For I had two fish, 
one weighing twenty-four pounds and the other twenty, 
while the seven pounds of the lead brought the load 
to nearly half a hundredweight to be hauled up a 
nearly four hundred feet of water. 

I dropped my prizes with a crash on deck just over 
the captain’s head, and he, a most enthusiastic fisher- 
man, was up with a couple of lines in two minutes. 
The deep-sea lead-line was discarded and proper 
tackle used, with the result that in an hour we had 


I turn Fisherman Indeed 287 


forty splendid fish, none under fifteen pounds in weight. 
And the most singular part of the business was that 
those fish most obligingly followed our lines up, or 
else, which is hardly thinkable, they were thick all 
the way down, for the last few we caught nearly at 
the surface, having decreased the depth to which 
we sunk our hooks at every cast. Then came the 
breeze, to which we made sail and departed from that 
wonderful fishing-ground. 

The coasts of Australia and New Zealand abound 
in fish, but especially Cod, Rockling, or, as they are 
there called, Rock Cod. They are of two kinds, the 
red and the blue, both, I think, superior to the grey 
Cod of our own seas, but the blue is reckoned by far 
the best. In fact, it fetches nearly double the price. 
They move in shoals as our home Cod do, following 
their food, whatever it may be, far up into land-locked 
bays and estuaries, as they do in Newfoundland and 
Nova Scotia, where I have seen one of the huge native 
dogs dive off a pier and emerge with a fine Cod in his 
mouth, which he proceeded to devour in leisurely 
fashion. 4 

This habit of theirs resulted in my making an 
extensive acquaintance with them once—the only 
time in my life that I was ever a ‘ professional” fisher- 
man. Whaling, ofcourse, isexcluded. I’was stranded 
in Port Chalmers, moneyless and unable to get a ship. 
Lounging miserably on the wharf one day, an old 
boatman of my acquaintance came up and said: 

‘Why don’t you go fishing ? The Cod are in the 
harbour, and Jimmy the curer round the flagstaff 
point will give you eighteenpence a dozen for all 
you catch.’ 

* But I’ve no boat,’ said I, ‘ nor money to hire one.’ 

*T’ll lend you a boat,’ he replied, ‘ and charge you 


sk hak neal 


half-a-cnown a day, which you can pay me out of zona 
earnings.’ 

I thanked him, and started; fortunately I had 
lines and hooks; I was seldom without them during 
my seafaring days. In an hour I was well down 
the bay and had joined a little flotilla of boats, whose 
occupants were all busy hauling in Cod. In five 
minutes I was as busy as they, but sorely handicapped 
by the leakiness of my craft, which necessitated me 
baling with one hand and fishing with the other. 
Nevertheless, fish were so plentiful, and I was so 
fortunate, that by sunset—I had gone out at I p.m.— 
I had caught a gross of fish, whose average weight 
was four pounds. I took them to the smokehouse 
and received eighteen shillings for them, at which I~ 
was mightily pleased. - 

Altogether that week my fishing brought me in 
four pounds, and I felt as if I were on the high road 
to fortune, when the Cod, who had only, I suppose, 
been on a visit, departed again, and my occupation 
was gone, for within the bay, where alone my boat 
was of service, I could not find a single Cod. On the 
last day I caught but a single fish, and that was a 
huge lean Ling. 

This curious relative of the Cod seems to be a com- 
promise between a Cod and a conger eel, and there are 
not wanting those fishermen who believe that it really 
is a hybrid. Its head and shoulders are exactly like 
a Cod, colour, barbels on the lower lip (a kind of feelers) 
and all. But the body tapers away just like an eel’s 
with a dorsal fin that runs almost round where the tail 
fin should be, and continues along the belly as a long 
ventral. The one I caught was nearly six feet in 
length, but so attenuated that he did not weigh more 
than twenty pounds. I found on this occasion, that 


LINE FISHING FOR COD-ON THE ‘BANKS.’ 


(Zo face p. 288. 


Varieties of Cod 289 


the habits of the southern Cod were far less regular 
than those of the Cod of our own seas. They appear 
to have no settled banks, feeding grounds where 
one may always find them at stated seasons, but wander 
in fairly large companies wherever food is plentiful. 

Before leaving this subject finally, I would like to 
say that Rock Cod are not confined, as are the grey 
variety, to temperate and cold waters. I have caught 
them in so torrid a climate as that of the Gulf of 
Mexico at a depth of seventy fathoms. But I suppose 
that the rule of low temperature at certain depths, 
making fish who affect those depths almost world-wide 
in their habitat, will apply to Cod, even though he 
is not, I should say, ever found at a greater depth 
than a hundred fathoms. That, however, is quite 
deep enough for the standard temperature (about 31° 
F.) of the deep sea. 

A very interesting little member of the Cod family, 
well-known to all of us, is the Whiting. It is caught 
in great quantities round our coasts and off the shores 
of Holland. It is essentially a fish to be eaten fresh, 
the delicacy and whiteness of its flesh being entirely 
spoiled by any attempts to cure it. More than that, 
much as it is prized on account of its delicacy of flavour 
and appearance, it is not too much to say that no 
one who has not tasted it within three hours of its 
capture can have any idea how delicious it really is. 
The same thing, of course, applies practically to all 
fish, no animal food growing flavourless and stale so 
quickly, but the probability is that of all the fish we 
eat there are none which it is so imperatively necessary 
to eat fresh if we would really have them in perfection 
‘as the Whiting. It is a small fish, being rarely caught 
ahove three pounds weight and averaging about a 
pound. 


t9 


290 bu iCediishaV 


The Pollock is another member of the Cod family — 
of rather better flavour than the chief of his tribe, — 
as well as more elegant in shape and not so slimy. — 
But he is much scarcer and more select, always being — 


regarded by fishermen as a far superior fish to the Cod. — | 


He is found of a goodly weight. I have myself caught — 
Pollock in the. Bay of Fundy weighing from seven to 
ten pounds. They are highly esteemed in Nova Scotia’ 
and New Brunswick, where I have seen them exposed — 
for sale after being smoked, haddock fashion, and very ; 
delicious eating they were. | teioat 

But none of the allied members of the fod attain to 
any comparison with his great size, which sometimes — 


runs up to close upon eighty pounds, except the Burbot, — | 


a true Cod, almost indistinguishable from his celebrated — 
congener, but an inhabitant of fresh water, and, as — 
far as is known, never going near the sea. Intherivers — 
of this country, such as the Trent and the Cam, where — 
he is to be found, his average weight is only two pounds, — 


but in the great streams of Europe and America he 7 


attains a weight sometimes of over twenty. There © 
is another species of Cod found on our coast known — 
as the Coal-fish, but it does not call for any je 
remark here. a 


~ 
4st 


POLLOCK FEEDING ON THEIR YOUNG, 


[See p. 290. 


CHAPTER XxXI 
THE HERRING 


TRICTLY speaking, the subject of the present 
chapter should not be allowed to enter this 
honourable company at all, since it is to com- 
prise only deep-sea people, to which so great an 
authority as Dr. Giinther emphatically says that 
the Herring does not belong. It has long been ima- 
gined that the Herring, our common Herring that is, 
from whom over fifty different species derive their 
title, spawns in the Arctic regions, and at stated 
periods pursues its way in unimaginable numbers 
through the deep sea until it strikes our coasts, when 
it rises to the surface and is thus brought within reach 
of the fisherman. But this idea is now scouted by 
ichthyologists. They tell us that the Herring never 
goes far from its spawning grounds, which are in shallow 
waters. That the immense shoals of Herring from 
which our fishermen take their toll have come up 
from deeper water a little farther off shore where they 
have been feeding and getting plump in order to spawn, 
which accounts for the fact that the Herring in full 
season is always full of roe or milt, and when they have 
_ spawned they are no longer fit to be eaten. Any one 
__who has ever tasted a Herring in the latter condition 
will cordially endorse that statement as an indubit- 
able fact. 
The romance of the Herring is a2 most fascinating 


291 


292 The Herring 


one. Although there may be some doubt as to which 
is the most valuable from a statistical and financial 
point of view, the cod or the Herring fishery, there 
can be no doubt at all as to which is the most ancient 
and, as far as Europe is concerned, most popular. 
The Herring has often been proudly dubbed the king 
of fish, but the name is inappropriate. The Herring 
is a vulgar fish, beloved by the people, who sniff its 
fragrant aroma, as, in the guise of the bloater or kipper, 
it splutters on the gridiron, with lively anticipations 
of a savoury meal. A fashionable fish it cannot be, — 
because of its cheapness and because of the aroma — 
aforesaid, which, in the eyes or rather the nostrils 
of poor folk, is one of its chief recommendations. d 

The Herring is almost the only fish which the © 
selfish autocrats of our great fish markets allow to 
be retailed cheaply, and it is no uncommon thing to 
see fresh Herrings not twenty-four hours from the — 
sea being sold in London streets by the poor man’s 
purveyor, the costermonger, at four and even six a 
penny, or at less than a penny a pound. And even 
at that rate there is considerable room for profit 
between the catcher and the eater. When one boat 
in a night sometimes draws from the sea over a quarter 


of a million fish, and could, but for her limited capacity — q 


and the fear of breaking the nets, take more than 
double the quantity, it is easily seen how cheap — 
the fish may be, especially when it is invariably taken 


near shore. Another thing, although the Herring dies 


almost instantaneously upon leaving the water, it — 
does not become stale very quickly—that is, there is — 
less difference between Herring just out of the water — 
and those twenty-four hours landed than there is — 
noticeable in almost any other fish under the same — 
conditions. ‘ 


Good in Every Way 293 


Moreover there is no fish which lends itself so easily 
to cheap curing, or which when cured has a flavour 
greatly superior to that of the fresh fish. Salted 
cod is good fish no doubt and has great value, but 
compared with the fresh fish it is vastly inferior in 
point of flavour. But delicious as is a fresh Herring 
fried or grilled, a bloater or a kipper is certainly far 
more savoury, although perhaps a trifle too rich for 
delicate stomachs. And they have the advantage 
of keeping for a long time if not allowed to dry. The 
high dried Herring, ‘ ham-cured ’ Herring, or ‘ Glasgow 
Magistrate,’ as irreverent people call it, is a great 
favourite with the poor, but it is intensely salt, and 
certainly has its demerits as a thirst provoker, leading 
to an increased consumption of beer, which among the 
class with whom it is a favourite is quite superfluous. 

The salt or pickled Herring is not at all in favour 
in this country, but in America and on the continent 
of Europe is greatly liked, especially in Holland and 
Germany, where it is eaten raw. I well remember my 
disgust when, while discharging a cargo of mahogany 
in Rotterdam, the foreman of the stevedores stopped 
a Herring vendor and purchasing half-a-dozen fish 
from him, tendered one to me. I smiled and said 
I had eaten my breakfast, and anyhow there was no 
means of cooking the fish. ‘Oh,’ said Hendryk, 
‘cooking would spoil them; we eat them like this.’ 
And taking one by each lobe of its tail, he ripped it 
asunder lengthways, skilfully ejected the backbone, 
and devoured the fish with great gusto. Prior to 
that the only people I had ever seen eat raw fish were 
. the South Sea Islanders, and I had fancied it a savage 
accomplishment. 

But whether salted, smoke-dried, or eaten fresh, the 
Herring as an article of food fills a position quite out 


294. ‘The Herring 


of all proportion to its size, but entirely commensurate — 
with its incaiculable multitudes. The Herring fishery — 
has the exceeding merit of antiquity, and the distinction — 
that, as the centuries have rolled by, it has grown in 
popular favour instead of waning, although it has lost 
its place at the tables of the wealthy, where * bacon’d’” 
Herring used to be accounted a great dainty. The 
chronicles of Evesham Abbey of the year 709 made 
mention of the Herring fishery as being even then — 
established, the Herrings, I suppose, being brought — 
from the Bristol Channel by way of the Severn and 
Avon into the heart of Worcestershire. 

Yarmouth, the Herring metropolis, has been 
famous for its fishery since the days of Norman William, — 
the shallow sandbanks lining the coasts of Suffolk — 
and Norfolk having ever been a favourite resort of © 
the valuable little fish, and one that, capricious as they — 
often are in their movements, they seldom fail to — 
visit in vast numbers. To-day, although Yarmouth ~ 
has gradually changed from being one of our principal 
fishing-ports to the less romantic but far more pro- — 
fitable position of a great favourite seaside resort, — 
during the Herring season it is a scene of the greatest 
activity, quite an immigration of Scotch lasses, — 
expert at dealing with the Herring in the way of Q 
preparing them for curing, taking place. : 

Yarmouth, however, can in nowise claim a mo- — 
nopoly of the Herring fishery, for all round our coasts, — 
except Cornwall and Devon, the pleasant fish is found — 
in varying numbers according as they feel inclined — 
to visit this, that, or the other place. The reasons — 
for this capriciousness are not at all understood, ~ 
whether it is a question of food, or gales, or temperature. — 
But the telegraph keeps the smacksmen advised as to — 
the movements of the fish, and no place can be visited — 


Dutchmen and Herrings 295 


by them without the prompt arrival of the fishermen 
in pursuit. 

» All round the sea coasts of Northern Europe the 
Herring is to be found in its season, from the North 
Cape to Ushant, but of all these countries where the 
Herring is known and loved and caught, Holland 
may probably claim the pre-eminence in antiquity 
and importance. There was a time when the fisher- 

men of the Netherlands supplied the whole of 
_ Europe with Herrings from their sandbanks, which 
are a characteristic feature of the Dutch coasts. Nay, 
Holland itself is just a series of sandbanks wrested 
from the sea, which is only kept from resuming its 
ancient’ sway over the country by unceasing care, 
and watchfulness over the dykes. Thus the Herrings 
were, so to speak, at the Dutchmen’s back doors, 
and right profitable advantage did the sturdy Nether- 
landers take of the fact. 

In the early days their method of curing for 
export was rough and rude in the extreme. They just 
piled the fish in heaps and sprinkled salt upon them. 
And the condition of those fish in a week or so must 
have been horrible. But people were not fastidious 
then, and disregarded the laws of health pretty much 
as they listed, being almost entirely ignorant of 
them, though it must be admitted that the Dutch 
were far in advance of any other nation in that 
respect. 

But in process of time a great genius arose, William 
Beukelaer, of a village near Sluys, who discovered 
that by pickling Herrings in barrels they might be 
really preserved from decay, be more portable, and 
incomparably cleaner and more wholesome. It seems 
to us now but a trifling and very obvious improvement 
upon the old method, but such as it was it had a most 


290 The Herring 


mighty influence in the moulding of Europe. For 
upon that apparently insignificant basis arose the 
Dutch Republic, which successfully resisted the 
infernal domination of Spain, and dealt one of the 
deadliest blows at the truly Satanic Inquisition that it 
ever received, making it, in fact, possible for Britain 
to finish the good work so well begun. Alas! that 
before doing so we should have been compelled to 
destroy the splendid fisheries and oversea trade built 
up by the strenuous Dutchmen. 

First the Herring, then the whale. These two 
sea-folk brought great prosperity to Holland, but 
note well, not a prosperity based upon luck, or accident, 
or coincidence, but sheer hard work, dogged perse- 
verance, and undaunted courage. Faithful to their 
first great success, the Dutchmen always spoke of the 
Herring as the ‘great fishery,’ of the whale as the 
‘small,’ having reference, of course, to the relative 
importance of the two industries and not at all to the 
size of the creatures taken. 

Truly the Herring fishery was a great undertaking 
—ain 1606, when it was at the height of its prosperity, 
it gave employment to two hundred thousand men. 
Three thousand smacks were employed and treble 
that number of schuyts and galliots were engaged 
in the transportation of the spoil of the sea. Then 
came the unhappy quarrel with England arising out of 
the partisanship of the States General for the Royalist 
party. Cromwell and his great admiral, Blake, dealt 
such disastrous blows at the sea business of the Nether- 
lands as practically crippled them. Then, when 
they were struggling doughtily to recover from their 
great misfortunes, they found the hardy Northmen 
already in possession of the bulk of the trade, and to 
crown all their misfortunes, they fell at last between 


~~ Pr EES 
as 


An Immense Industry 297 


the upper millstone of Napoleon and the nether mill- 
stone of England, which completed their ruin. But 
such a people could not long be kept down, and ac- 
cordingly towards the end of the first half of the 
nineteenth century they began to recover again, and 
have now built up a fine trade once more. 

All this time we were too busy fighting and de- 
veloping in other directions to pay much heed to the 
Herring fishery, but at last, having destroyed the 
Dutch fishing fleet, we began to feel the need of estab- _ 
lishing a much larger fishery for the supply of our 
own increasing wants. And this impetus given to 
the business has lasted until now, the greatest develop- 
ment, however, having shown itself among the Scotch, 
who boast that their Loch Fyne Herring are the finest 
in the world. 

On the coast of Newfoundland and as far North 
as Labrador, there is a considerable amount of Herring 
fishing carried on, the fish being of a larger and fatter 
kind than are found over here. But the business is 
so dwarfed by the great cod fishery that we hear very 
little of it. There is, however, a rather important 
fishery carried on farther south, off the New England 
coast, that of the ‘Menhaden.’ a species of Herring 
which is so rich in oil as to be hardly eatable. It is 
caught in immense quantities for the purpose of ex- 
tracting the oil, which fetches a good price, and the 
dried fish remaining is used for manure. 

But one of the most peculiar facts in connection 
with the Herring is the persistent way in which one 
branch of the family, the Pilchard (Clupea pilchardus), 
remains faithful to the south-western corner of England, 
the counties of Devon and Cornwall being thus favoured 
to the almost total exclusion of any other part of the 
country. In this they differ greatly from the Herring 


2098 ©. The Herring 


proper, which is notable for its fickleness in visiting 
various places around the coast. Fortunately I have 
avoided making mention of the unaccountable numbers 
of the Herring, for great as they are, one must reserve 
all the superlatives at command for the Pilchard. 

Iremember hearing fromsome St. Ives fishermen how 
one season, when the fish were even more numerous than 
usual, how it occurred to some enterprising net owners 
that it would be a good thing to stretch a strong fleet 
of nets across the narrow entrance to a tiny bay, a 
mere pond of less than an acre in extent, at high water 
when it was practically alive with Pilchards. They 
did so, and when the tide ebbed they were appalled 
at the magnitude of their haul. They sent word 
hastily to all the population round about to come 
and take their fill of the spoil, to farmers that they 
might bring their waggons and cart off the fish for 
manure, to everybody, in fact, who could in any way 
lessen the heap of fish. But in vain. Nothing seemed 
to make any impression upon it, for there were thou- 
sands of tons. And the foolish greed of the originators 
of this wholesale plan of capture was punished by an 
epidemic which, begun in that mountain of putrefying 
fish, devastated the neighbourhood. 

Only by remembering that in the ordinary course of 
the fishery ten thousand hogsheads have been landed 
in one port in a single day, roughly twenty-five millions 
of fish, can we imagine what that gigantic haul shut 
in the little bay must have been. The fish run so 
thick in the schools that a pitchfork will stand upright 
in them, as if stuck into a hogshead full, And it is 
usual when a shoot of nets has been laid round a portion 
of a school like that for boats to be loaded from the 
inside of the circle as from a tank, and only take 
ashore as much at a time as can conveniently be 


The Savoury Pilchard 2099 


dealt with. By this means the fish: are he from 
spoiling. 

Apart from those that are vamaihial Idvally, there 
is not much British trade in the Pilchard. It is too 
rich for most tastes. So it is salted and packed in 
hogsheads ‘for the Continental market, whither it is 
sent after a period of pressure upon the fish inthe big 
casks for the purpose of panne as’ much of the 
oil as possible. 

But for some obscure reason, of which I know 
nothing, it seems impossible to spread the sale of 
this rich and tasteful little fish farther than its present 
somewhat restricted distribution:: Many attempts 
have been made to do so, serious and well-managed 
efforts which deserved success at any rate. Lightly 
cured and of a bright golden colour, Pilchards in bundles 
were for some time to be seen on almost every fish- 
monger’s show-boards in poor neighbourhoods. They 
were not only appetising in appearance, but of really 
delicious flavour, besides being as cheap as the London 
workman insists upon having his food, that is to say, 
cheaper than food can be bought of the same kind and 
quality in any other city in the world. 

But I am afraid that they came into competition 
with the herring too severely, and so brought down 
upon themselves, or rather their owners, the enmity 
of the great herring factors, for I have noticed that 
for some time past they have hardly been procurable. 
Or perhaps the people for whose benefit they were 
intended would not encourage their sale. The poorest 
classes, of London especially, those that is who work 
and support themselves, are tremendously conservative, 
clinging tenaciously to old ways, old styles of food, in 
a wonderful manner. But if by perseverance some 
new food is at last brought into their favour its success 


300 The Herring 


is assured, they will rush for it in hundreds of thousands, 
while at the same time remaining loyal to their old 
loves. And perhaps some day they will appreciate 
fresh Pilchards as much as they now do fresh herrings, 
and bloatered Pilchards also. 

A great deal of capital and energy has also been 
expended in the attempt to utilise the Pilchard as 
a ‘ Cornish sardine,’ which is retailed at a very modest 
tate, but has certainly not been able to do any harm 
by its competition to the sale of sardines at nearly 
double the price. They are good and very whole- 
some; the utmost care is taken in their preparation 
—but even, the most careless person would never 
take them for sardines, the delicacy of flavour, scarcity 
of bones and succulence of flesh being altogether 
in favour of the sardine. A much better idea has 
been that of preparing Pilchards in oil as Pilchards, 
putting them on the market under their own name 
and trusting to their own good qualities to make a 
lucrative sale for them. They can be obtained at 
nearly all respectable grocers, and I am sure only 
need a trial to become favourably known. 

Whether a largely increased sale for them or for 
any other fish that can be sold very fresh is likely 
under the present market conditions of England 
generally I do not know. But I fear not. It is a 
thing to be remembered in this free trade country, 
how coolly, how frequently, the price of necessaries of 
life is raised, how persistently the cheapening of food 
is opposed by the dealers in these commodities, and 
how utterly helpless the consumer is to alter this 
tyrannical state of affairs. Nowhere is this more 
marked than in the distribution of fish. But for the 
costermongers and their energy in clearing away a 
‘glut’ of fish from the market, when by some un- 


IN THE HERRING CURING HOUSE, 


[To face p. 30%. 


a ct 


The Vulgar Sprat 301 


foreseen hitch in the middle-men’s plans such a thing 
happens, it is not too much to say that most of the 
very poor would never know the taste of fresh fish 
at all. But perhaps this is more than enough of the 
economic side of the Pilchard, which, at any rate, 
is much beloved in what may be called his native 
county of Cornwall, however difficult it may be for 
him to get just appreciation in the rest of England. 

Following on after the pilchard in point of size, 
but almost as universal in their British habitat as 
the herring, comes the Sprat, dear to Londoners. 
Indeed, they are the whitebait of the poor, and so 
well-flavoured that it can scarcely be doubted that 
but for their amazing numbers and consequent cheap- 
ness they would be quite as much in favour with the 
wealthy as the delicate little fish which used to be 
sacred to the ministerial end-of-the-session dinners 
at Greenwich. Very graciously this little herring 
comes upon the scene immediately after the herring 
season is over, and in immense numbers. 

But it is much to be feared that the catching of 
them does not afford anything like adequate remunera- 
tion to the fishermen. And the demand, though 
undoubtedly large, is strictly limited. If the quantity 
brought ashore at all oversteps that limit, this beautiful 
little fish goes off in its myriads for manure. And I 
have often seen Sprats being sold in London at one 
penny for two pounds. Here, at any rate, the com- 
plaint against the middle-man keeping the price up 
can hardly be maintained. But as far as I know it 
is almost the only fish of which the same thing can 
be said. 

Also the Sprat lends itself most amicably to curing, 
somewhat after the style of the kippered herring, 
except that it is not, of course, split open. It is cured 


302 . The Herring 


by smoking, having very little salt added, and is then 
tied up in little bundles of ten, which are usually 
sold three for twopence or one halfpenny each. Most 
delicious and delicate they are in flavour, too, only 
that they have the fatal plebeian stamp of plenty and 
cheapness. But even the poor do not, I think, appre- 
ciate them as they should. Not nearly as much, for 
instance, as they do such shell-fish as the periwinkle 
and the appalling whelk, which is a miracle of toughness 
and indigestibility. 

Following up a theory very largely held that the 
herring, the Sprat, and the sardine, are one and the 
same fish, serious attempts have been made to serve 
Sprats in tins a la sardine. But no one of the slightest 
discrimination can fail to detect the difference at once. 
There is no doubt that an enormous number of Sprats 
are preserved in inferior oil such as cotton-seed oil, 
and sold as sardines at fourpence to sixpence a tin, 
sardines of undoubted genuineness costing at the 
same time one shilling and twopence per tin of the 
same size, and there is equal certainty that people 
who have grown fond of fish preserved in oil do eat 
and enjoy these tinned Sprats in the belief that they 
are sardines, utterly oblivious of the fact that they 
are paying from eight to ten times more than they 
need for the dainty little fish, which when smoked, 
may safely challenge the whole fish world in point 
of flavour, but does not take kindly to preservation 
in oil, as do the sardine and anchovy. But, except 
for the fact that these Sprats are sold as sardines 
when they are not, this is nobody’s business but the 
sellers’ and the buyers’; I mean, that no one is done 
any great harm to, and so it is not necessary to interfere. 
It is perfectly certain, however, that the name ‘ Sprat’ 
has so low and vulgar a sound that, if these tinned 


Providential Habits 303 


Sprats were offered for sale as such, no one would be 
found to purchase them at all. 

The habits of the Sprat as far as they can be known 
are identical with those of the herring. Both feed 
in their incalculable hosts in the deep water off our 
coasts, affording in their turn food to a mighty army 
of larger fish of many species. Then when the time 
draws near for them to spawn they come shorewards, 
drawing closer together until they appear like a solid 
wall of fish many yards thick and hundreds of yards 
long, all moving by one common impulse towards 
whatever spawning ground they may happen to be 
seeking. They have no leaders, and it passes the wit 
of man to understand why they vary their spawning 
places: whether it is the weather, the temperature 
of the sea, or the quantity of food to be found which 
actuates them. The amazing thing is that every 
individual of the countless millions feels the same 
impulse, obeys it at the same moment, and needs no 
other guide. 

For the sake of the humans who depend upon them, 
it is a wonderfully valuable dispensation of Providence 
which compels them to seek the surface and the com- 
paratively shallow waters near the shore to spawn, 
since otherwise it would be perfectly impossible to 
catch them. No other means could be devised which 
would be so effectual in garnering this rich harvest 
of the sea as that universally employed and invented 
in who knows what dim, far-off age of the world’s 
history. 

And yet the method is not, as might be supposed, 
universally understood. Very briefly it is this: of 
stout well-tarred twine a net is constructed about 
twenty feet wide and in one hundred and twenty feet 
lengths, making up for one boat about two hundred 


304 The Herring 


fathoms. At the top and bottom are stout ropes, 
the lower rope being slightly weighted with sheet 
lead lapped round it in places and the upper buoyed 
with pieces of cork. The meshes are made just large 
enough for the herring or Sprat, as the case may be, 
to get its head through. Then it is caught, for the 
pectoral fins and swell of the body will not allow it 
to go any farther, while the opening of the gills prevent 
it from moving backwards. When the nets are shot, 
as it is termed, they oppose to the passage of the 
army of herrings an invisible fence through which 
it is impossible to pass, but which is, of course, at- 
tempted. Presently an enormous number of fish 
are éntrapped by the neck, but so lightly are they 
held that when the net is hauled into the boat a gentle 
shake is quite sufficient to dislodge them, and they 
fall into the boat dead, for the herring dies almost 
at once upon leaving its native element. 

Meeting this invisible barrier throws the school 
into terrible confusion, and it breaks up, its units, 
no longer homogeneous in mass, rushing aimlessly 
hither and thither. A catastrophe has taken place in 
their world far greater than the swift passage through 
their mass of a whale with vast jaws widespread 
swallowing many thousands of them at a gulp, or 
the incessant incursions of the porpoises and sharks. 
But the barrier once removed and its goodly load of 
victims transferred to the boat, they soon re-form 
again and, obedient to that compelling impulse, 
resume their steady march towards their objective. 

Much to the discomfiture and loss of the fishermen, 
it does occasionally happen that a whale in pursuit 
of his prey comes gliding on to where the nets stretch 
right across his path. As the fishermen can easily 
see his approach, even on the darkest night, it is an 


HOW THE WHITING IS CAUGHT, 


(To face p. 305. 


Trials of Herring Fishers 305 


anxious time for them, and all manner of strange 
devices are resorted to for the purpose of turning 
him from his course. For should he pass through 
the nets, while he would hardly feel them, it would 
be nothing short of a disaster for the poor men earning 
their hard and precarious livelihood. It might con- 
vert a fairly prosperous season into one in which a 
dead loss was made, for those nets are costly, and 
a whale can easily carry away a whole flight. 

Scarcely less destructive are the sharks and dog- 
fish and porpoises, all of which are far too strong, 
ravenous, and reckless, to be safely hindered by the 
envelopment of herring nets. Also it is not an un- 
known thing for a ship to blunder through the nets, 
and cause much damage, so that, apart altogether from 
the chances of severe autumnal weather, the herring 
fisherman’s life is a very anxious one, and he deserves 
all the efforts that are being made by good people 
ashore for the furtherance of his spiritual and material 
welfare. These fishermen are, taking them all round, 
a splendid race of men, and entirely worthy of our 
deepest regard. 

The tiny species of herring known as Whitebait 
(Clupea alba) is taken in small bag nets just beneath 
the surface of the water in the estuaries of our rivers, 
principally in the Thames, in spite of the pollution 
which has robbed the beautiful river of most of its 
fish, even in the high reaches. But the tiny wanderers . 
only come in with the flood-tide, getting out again, 
those that are not caught, before the poisonous matter 
brought down by the ebb has had time to overtake 
them. The catching of them is a very small but 


’ fairly lucrative industry, there being always a brisk 


demand for them at high prices, since they are what 
may be termed a fashionable fish. Yet, as I have 
20 


306 The Herring 


said before, there can be scarcely any question but 
that the vulgar Sprat is of much better flavour, 
although it. must be admitted that the Sprat is a 
trifle rich for delicate stomachs to deal with. There 
is little doubt but that other young fry are frequently 
brought to market and sold as Whitebait, or that 
they are just as good, no one but an expert ichthyo- 
logist being able to tell the difference between them 
and the Whitebait. So that the substitution may be 
quite innocent, and in any case does not matter. 

The Sardine, while a veritable herring, is a very 
well-marked variety, having distinct qualities of its 
own, and keeping rigidly away from the shores of 
Britain. It is caught at various places along the 
coasts of France westward from the bay in which 
are the Channel Islands, but the chief fishing port 
is L’Orient on the northern shore of the Bay of pie 
in Brittany. 

But of late the Sardine fishery has fallen upon evil 
days. The natural enemies of the little fish, such 
as whales and porpoises, have increased so greatly 
that the shoals no longer come near enough to shore 
to be caught; indeed, there do not seem to be any 
shoals of Sardines at all, and the poor Breton fishermen 
are in such dire straits that public help has been asked 
and obtained for them. And a paternal government 
has, at the request of the fishermen, granted the use 
of torpedo boats to hunt and destroy the porpoises, 
in the hope that thus will the drain upon the supply 
of Sardines be stopped. 

But it seems very doubtful indeed whether such 
measures are of the slightest use. Except for some 
terrible submarine calamity, such as a sudden lowering 
of the sea temperature, or a volcano suddenly becoming 
active, the numbers of such a fish as the Sardine would 


A Sardine Famine 307 


not be affected. The natural checks placed upon their 
increase in the sea by the Creator will never do more 
than they should do, when unmolested by man. It 
is only when man thrusts his hands into Nature’s 
work that any great unbalancing of natural resources 
takes place. The Sardines have just moved on a little, 
that is all, and will, I hope, be as plentiful as ever 
round the Breton shores again soon. 

- The dainty little fish is also found in the Mediterra- 
nean on the coast of Africa and about the islands of 
Corsica and Sardinia, but in these localities is more 
a matter of local consumption than of preparation 
for export. This seems strange too, seeing that from 
the latter island it takes its name, and its plenty there 
is beyond question. But the Bretons have made the 
Sardine fishery peculiarly their own, and nothing 
apparently but a continuance of the present dearth 
can take from them their premier position as the 
world’s purveyors of the finest brands. 

The Anchovy is also a Mediterranean fish of world- 
wide reputation as an appetiser, its piquant flavour 
and the rather large quantity of salt considered 
necessary to its preservation making it a much desired 
adjunct to other fish in the shape of sauce. Its 
peculiarly coloured flesh, too, helps it for this purpose, 
the dark red of the Anchovy contrasting well with 
the white flesh of cod, turbot, etc. In this respect 
it differs widely from all of its congeners, and except 
for the assurance of those who have made fish their 
social study, I should hesitate to accept the statement 
that it belongs to the herring family at all. In any 
case it is but a distant relation, for the prefix Clupea 
is dropped, and a totally dissimilar one, Engraulis, 
is given. The principal fisheries are along the Riviera, 
where the fish are pickled in tiny barrels and sent else- 


308 The Herring 


where to be made into sauce or paste, or eaten au naturel 
as the Dutch eat the pickled Herring. But the fish 
frequents the whole of the adjacent coasts eastward, 
being caught all down the Italian shore as far as Sicily 
as well as on the African shore. 

Of the Large Herring frequenting the inclement 
shores of Labrador, alluded to in the early part of this 
chapter, there is very little to say, except that, like 
the Menhaden, they are far too full of oil to be relished 
by us, even if it were worth while to send them over, 
which it emphatically is not. They are, however, in 
great demand in America in their pickled or salt 
condition, and are to be found all over the interior 
of the United States and Canada. Scattered members 
of the herring family are found in many parts of the 
world, none calling for comment but the Fresh- 
water Herring of some Australian rivers. Many of 
these I have caught with a hook and line from the 
wharves on the Clarence River, and do not remember 
that they presented any essential difference from the 
herring caught in the British seas. But then I did 
not attach any importance to the fact that I was 
catching them in fresh water, a point which should 
have claimed my attention even at that early age. 

I have left to the last the mighty and majestic 
Tarpon, beloved of wealthy anglers and frequenting 
the shores of the Gulf of Mexico and adjacent islands. 
He is undoubtedly a herring! But such a herring! 
Specimens have been caught weighing two hundred 
pounds, and the sport of landing such a monster as 
that with an ordinary salmon rod and line calls for 
the highest skill, strength, and patience on the part 
of the angler. It is such a splendid game fish too, 
leaping high into the air like a huge bar of silver when 
hooked, and endeavouring to shake the galling hook 


The Majestic Tarpon 309 


out of its mouth. In this it very often succeeds, 
much to the chagrin of the fisherman, whose utmost 
skill is powerless to prevent such an accident unless 
by great good fortune the hook should have penetrated 
the only vulnerable part of the jaw. 

One night in Barbadoes, fishing with ordinary 
tackle, I hooked Tarpon over twenty times, and lost 
them before I had gathered in half a dozen fathoms 
of the line. For whenever they sprang into the air, 
which they did as soon as they felt the hook, they 
leaped towards the boat at the same time, and my 
hooks being of a very inferior type and not at all like 
the keen slender hooks sold for Tarpon-fishing, they 
would not hold, especially as I could not keep a strain 
on the line. But at last I did succeed in catching one 
(he fell off the hook the moment he entered the boat), 
and immediately examining his mouth I found it 
apparently entirely devoid of any place where a 
hook could enter except the edge of the lip. It 
seemed to be all solid, polished bone. I thought 
I had never seen a more beautiful fish. Its eyes 
were very large and full, and its scales, each as big 
as a crown piece, were just like planished plates of 
mother of pearl. Of the quality of its flesh I can say 
nothing, as I sold it, and so did not assist at the eating 
of my prize. 


CHAPTER XXII 
THE BARRACOUTA 


N dealing with this fish, the last upon my list, I have 
one great advantage: knowing him very well, in- 
deed personally, I am not hampered with what I 

may call museum details. Strangely enough, the Barra- 
couta, in spite of the large extent of his range, his great 
numbers, usefulness as a food-fish, and other strongly 
marked qualities, has been much neglected by ichthyo- 
logists, Messrs. Goode and Bean’s monumental work, 
for instance, having no mention of him. Lydekker 
mentions the name, spelling it ‘ Barracouda,’ as being 
indifferently applied to the genera Thyrsites and 
Sphyroena. But that does not shed a dazzling light 
upon the habits of a most interesting deep-sea fish, and 
one that is found in nearly all tropical and temperate 
waters around the world. I should like though to 
say at the outset that, in my experience, the Barra- 
couta of the West Indies differs in very important 
respects from the fish known by that name around 
the South African coast and in Australasia ; yet the 
habits and contour of the two are so exactly similar 
that I am convinced they are very closely related, and 
the difference probably due to climate and habitat. 
My first acquaintance with the Barracouta was 
made in the small reef-protected harbour of Falmouth, 
Jamaica. A native fisherman brought one on board 
for sale, and the steward, after some little haggling, 


310 


SO Pals 


ig 
e 
f 


A Dangerous Neighbour 311 


bought it and hung it up beneath the boat on the 
skids. Being at that time of an age when inquisitive- 
ness is the normal frame of mind, 7.e. about thirteen, 
I soon found an opportunity of examining it. It was 


about three feet long with scarcely any bulge to its 


body, which was about eight inches wide and five 
inches thick, tapering off very little to the tail. Its 
head was very much like a pike’s, with a lower jaw 
considerably prolonged beyond the upper one, an 
enormous gape and cruel-looking canine teeth. Indeed, 
but that it was more symmetrical, it reminded me very 
much of the head of a crocodile. The eyes were 
large and well situated for seeing in every direction, 
being set prominently, one on either side of the widest 
part of the wedge-shaped head. The fins were rather 
small for the size of the fish, ali except the caudal or 
tail-fin, which was large, fleshy and lightly forked, 
having a very wide area of propelling surface. The 
body was covered with medium-sized scales, which 
were easily detached, showing in a marked degree 
its difference from the mackerel family, whose scales 
are few and most firmly attached to their bodies. Its 
colours were simple, a dirty brownish black above 
and livid white below, the two meeting at the lateral 
line. It was long afterwards when I first saw a hake, 
a common fish around our south-western coasts, and 
I was immediately struck by the great resemblance 
between it and a Barracouta—so great that I feel 
sure they must belong to the same family, although 
I do not believe the hake has anything like the ferocious 
character of his great southern congener. 

While I stood studying the contour of this, to me, 
new and strange fish, the cook, an elderly negro 
belonging to the island, sauntered up, and after 
handling the fish, began in an impartial sort of way 


312 The Barracouta 


to tell me anecdotes about the Barracouta. I regret 
exceedingly that I am unable to reproduce them here 
in detail. I can only say that, if true, and the narrator 
evidently believed them to be so, they stamped the 
Barracouta with a malignancy of character in its 
relations to man compared with which that of the shark 
is personified amiability. It must suffice to say that, 
according to cook, the vicinity of a Barracouta to 
a swimmer meant death, death by lingering torture, 
since the terrible fish only took one bite, but that a 
diabolically efficient one. No wonder, believing what 
they did, that the negroes should have called the 
Barracouta the ‘ devil-fish,’ one among the many 
denizens of the deep sea to which this grisly name 
has been given. 

A few days later I had an opportunity of seeing 
how firm a hold this belief had upon the darkies. 
By accident a pair of can-hooks had been dropped 
overboard, and although the water was forty feet 
deep, such was its transparency that they could plainly 
be seen resting upon the smooth white sand. There 
were several sharks prowling around as usual, but the 
offer of a shilling to whoever would dive for those 
can-hooks was quite sufficient to bring forward in- 
stantly half-a-dozen eager candidates, who cared 
no more for the presence of a shark than they did for a 
sprat. One by one they went overboard, making first 
a bit of a splashing to keep the sharks at a respectful 
distance, and then swimming down to the bottom. 

But the can-hooks proved too heavy to lift to the 
surface, although several divers tried, and at last a man 
was going down with a hook on the hand lead-line to 
attach to the chain of the can-hooks when suddenly a 
cry of ‘ Couter,’ ‘Couter’ was raised. There were at the 
time eight negroes in the water gambolling about and 


My First Barracouta 313 


taking as little heed of the fact that there were many 
sharks in the vicinity as of one another. But at that cry 
there was a frantic rush to get out of the water. De- 
mented, they tore at one another for the possession of 
ropes that were flung over, and for a few moments it 
looked as if a tragedy were imminent. But, fortunately, 
all got safely on board, although their demoralised, 
panic-stricken condition was painful to witness. And 
their discussion of the situation afterwards savoured 
more of the proceedings of a bevy of Bedlamites than 
anything else. 

The vessel was wrecked on leaving the port for 
home, coming to grief about two miles outside the 
harbour, and consequently I had an opportunity 
of studying shore life among those cheery amiable 
- darkies. One day four stalwart ebon friends of mine 
foregathered on the beach, and I, coming up with 
them, learned that they were going Barracouta 
fishing. I asked if I might come too, and was immedi- 
ately made welcome, nay more, I was allowed to sit 
in the stern of the canoe and hold the line, a stout 
cord about sixty yards long with one two-inch hook 
baited with a whole fish about six inches long, of what 
kind I do not now remember. I sat upon the gunwale 
right aft and held the line, which had been allowed to 
run out about half its length, while my four friends 
plied their paddles with all their might, making the 
canoe fly through the water, the object being to make 
the bait appear alive. 

It was most exhilarating for me, although the 
exertion under that blazing sun must have been most 
exhausting to my friends. For some time no fish 
came, as we careered to and fro across the bay, and 
presently taking a couple of turns round my hand 
I looked forward at my energetic paddlemen. Suddenly 


314 ' The Barracouta 


I described a confused sort of somersault, and struck 
the water far astern of the canoe. For me the rest of 
the episode, until I found myself again in the canoe, 
vomiting gallons of sea-water, as it seemed, was one 
hurly-burly of noise and rushing waters. I was told 
that in their haste to rescue me the men had capsized 
the canoe, which was but a trifle to these amphibia, 
but had delayed things a bit. However, as soon as 
I began to take an interest in mundane matters again 
I felt considerable pride (although none of the credit 
was mine) in seeing a Barracouta nearly five feet long 
lying in the bottom of the canoe. And I learned with 
deep satisfaction that evening that he had made 4s. 6d. 
for my fishermen, who had peddled him around the 
town. From thenceforward, however, I was rigidly 
debarred any participation in the chase of the Barra- 
couta, earnestly as I pleaded for another opportunity. 

_ My next passage was to Kingston in a small schooner, 
when a great deal depended upon our being able to 
catch a Barracouta, for our provisions ran out, and we 
were becalmed a long way off the land. But whether 
it was owing to the light wind not giving the schooner 
way enough through the water, or our clumsy attempts 
to lure them, I know not, never a Barracouta could 
we get hold of, although we saw many swimming 
in their stealthy manner round and round our vessel. 

The only fish we caught was a shark, which was 
immediately cut up and cooked. And although my 
hunger was fierce, I have a vivid recollection of the 
nauseating quality of that food—I can recall its horrible 
flavour now, although it is thirty-three years ago 
since I reluctantly ate it. After we had been in to 
Savanna le Mar and replenished our stock of provisions, 
and consequently had no need of fish, we caught 
several fairly large specimens of Barracouta, by trailing 


Eastern Specimens 315 


a line astern when the schooner was running with a 
fresh breeze. 

. From Kingston I went to Port au Prince in Hayti, 
and in that wonderful harbour watched the sharks 
and the Barracouta prowling ravenously about, taking 
never-ending toll, the former of all that fell from the 
ship, the latter of all sorts of fish. It was like watching 
a continual battle, and, indeed, the warfare of the 
submarine world is unending, whether we can see it 
or not. 

Then I returned home, and after a season in 
Liverpool sailed for the East Indies in a ship where 
my fishing experiences were widely extended. The 
strangest of them was in the Indian Ocean some dis- 
tance out of sight of Mauritius, to the eastward of it. 
The mate had been unsuccessfully trolling for dolphin 
with a piece of red bunting, the ship sailing about 
four knots an hour. And to my great delight he 
permitted me to attend to his line while he went to 
‘take the sun.’ I sat on the wheel grating holding 
the line, as happy as I could be, and fully expecting 
to sueceed where the mate had failed (I had done so 
before), but without any success until eight bells, when 
the mate went below to work up the ship’s position. 
He had hardly disappeared when I felt a tremendous 
tug at the line, and springing to my feet I hauled 
with all my might. But my surprise was too great for 
words, when, on landing my fish, I found it to be a 
goodly Barracouta of about ten pounds’ weight, 
and identical in appearance with those I had been 
acquainted with in the West Indies. 

Fearful lest I should be superseded in my pleasant 
task, I unhooked my prize as quietly as possible, got 
the relieved man from the wheel to take it forward, 
and resumed my fishing, landing two others in quick 


316 The Barracouta 


succession. When the mate returned to his line he 
was astounded to see what kind of fish I had caught, 
having no idea that they were a deep-sea fish. Much 
to his chagrin no more were caught, either then or 
afterwards. Not only so, but that was the only time 
I have ever seen or heard of them being taken far at 
sea. But, of course, I do not suppose ours was a 
unique case. They must be a pelagic deep-sea fish, 
only scarce in number, and consequently seldom seen. 
After all, the opportunities that ordinary sailors have in 
sailing ships (they have none in steamers) of becoming 
acquainted with deep-sea fish are very scanty. And 
if a man has no liking for natural history study he 
may be like a man who sailed with us in the ‘ Cachalot ’ 
the whole voyage, and as he asserted afterwards, 
owing to his being short-sighted, never saw a whale ! 

After that well-remembered encounter with the 
Barracouta in the Indian Ocean, it was eighteen months 
before I saw another. The next time was while I was 
lamp-trimmer in a small steamer called the ‘ Helen 
McGregor,’ running between Sydney, N.S.W., and 
Grafton, Clarence River. I had been told by a fellow 
‘lamps ’ who was in another ship of the same company, 
the ‘ New England,’ that if I got a long stout line and 
good hooks I might get fish on the coast sometimes 
by trolling, especially between the North and South 
Solitary Islands. Always enthusiastic about fishing, 
I obtained the requisite tackle at the first opportunity, 
although I felt very sceptical as to any fish coming 
near enough to the wake of our screw. 

However, that next passage, having secreted a 
little white and scarlet bunting from the store in Sydney 
I mounted the poop when the vessel was off Port 
Stephens just after daybreak one morning and started. 
To my great satisfaction after only a few minutes’ 


Australian ’Couters 317 


waiting I caught a fine fish, not a Barracouta, but a 
much more elegant and beautiful creature, called 
trivially a ‘ yellow tail,’ from the bright gold colour 
of its fins and tail. I was delighted at my success, 
and as soon as I had disposed of my prize to the cook 
(strangely I never cared what became of my fish after 
I had caught them and gloated over them for a little 
while), I tried again, shortly afterwards capturing 
a fine Barracouta. 

But now I was sorely puzzled. There was between 
this and all other Barracouta I had ever seen one 
radical difference, it was practically scaleless, at 
least as much so as a mackerel, while the others had 
been all completely clad in scales. In every other 
respect, as far as I could see or remember, they were 
identical. This, however, was so great a difference 
that I could only account for it by supposing that they 
were a different species. Certainly they were both 
known as Barracouta, and no one has seemed to notice 
that there was any difference. 

While I remained in that small steamer I caught 
many, caught them right up to the turbulent edge 
of the Clarence River Bar, and I have no doubt might 
have done so in the salt estuary of the river itself, 
but that once inside the Bar I was always too busy 
with other matters for fishing. I noticed, or I thought 
I did, that these naked Barracouta were finer-flavoured 
than the West Indian variety, but that may have been 
fancy. 

Then I left the Northern Australian trade and went 
south, where, though I doubt not Barracouta were 
plentiful, especially between Wilson’s Promontory 
and Queenscliff, Port Philip Heads, I was not allowed 
to fish over the taffrail, and was compelled to limit 
my sport to ordinary bottom fishing while still in 


318 The Barracouta 


Hobson’s Bay or Auckland Harbour, the latter the 
most prolific place for fishing in that I have ever 
known. oy 
But getting tired of good living, good pay, and light 
work, I shipped for England via Burmah, and having 
put into Port Elizabeth on the way home, we coasted 
round Cape Colony, at no great distance from the 
land all the way. And for an ordinary merchantship 
we caught a surprising number of Barracouta, ‘ Snoek,’ 
as they are called locally, which I found were naked 
of scales like those of Australia. This was very strange 
to me, as those caught in the Indian Ocean off Mauritius 
were identical, as far as I could see, with the West 
Indian variety, certainly in point of scales they were. 
These South African Barracouta, or Snoek, were 
tremendously voracious. I have known them to snap 
at the bare hook, and I have little doubt but that 
they are responsible for the frequent losses of patent 
log-propellers, the small four-bladed fan that revolves 
on a patent log, faster or slower according to the 
speed of the vessel behind which it is towed, and 
registers the number of miles travelled on dials. 
My next experience of Barracouta was in the 
Cachalot,’ where, indeed, I made the acquaintance 
of many new kinds of fish, and vastly enjoyed the 
pleasure of noting their habits, apart altogether 
from the joy of making many a good meal when 
without them we should have gone hungry. On the 
coast of New Zealand, the Maories taught us a novel 
plan of catching Barracouta, but only possible to any 
extent where the fish were as plentiful as they were 
there. In no other place have I seen the Barracouta 
swim in shoals of hundreds of thousands, almost as 
closely packed as mackerel. But then I do not believe 
that there is any sea in the world so full of fish as that 


Maori Fishing 319 


which washes the shores and fills the harbours of New 
Zealand, the beautiful Britain of the South. 

All around the coasts of the Middle and South 
Islands, according to the season of the year, the 
Barracouta swarm, in great schools as I have said, 
and the orthodox method of entrapping them, invented 
by the Maories, is as follows :—Take a stout rod, 
say eight to ten feet in length, or rather a pole, fairly 
rigid and tough, but not too heavy. To the end of. 
it secure a piece of strong fishing line five or six feet 
in length. To the free end of this line attach a lure 
made as follows: A piece of red pine (vimu) four 
inches long, one inch wide and half an inch thick, is 
scraped smooth and bright so that it will glow crimson 
when wet. Through one end of it is driven a two-inch 
nail, which is carefully bent upward and filed sharp. 
Then this lure is fastened to the line in such a manner 
that, in case of the splitting of the wood, the fish shall 
not be lost. Now the boat, in which two fishermen 
sit to windward facing forward, is sailed briskly to 
and fro, the fishermen meanwhile whipping the water 
occasionally until a Barracouta snaps at the bait, and 
with a dexterous swing is flung into the boat where, 
as there is no barb on the hook, he immediately falls 
off. At the same time the peak halyards are let go, 
so that the boat’s way is deadened and the fishermen 
ply their poles energetically. 

If they have struck a school, the fish rise and fall 
into the boat with a rhythmical regularity, every 
sweep of the bait into the water securing its fish. So 
rapid is the process, that I have seen thirty dozen fine 
fish, none under six or seven pounds in weight, shipped 
in an hour, and but for the fact that the fisher- 
men’s arms refused duty and imperatively required 
a little rest there was no reason why this wholesale 


320 The Barracouta 


capture should not have gone on. Before, however, 
the wearied arms had rested sufficiently the school had 
moved off, nor were any more caught that day. But 
as the fishermen sold them to curers at an all-round 
price of eighteenpence per dozen, the catch, forty-five 
shillings worth, could not be called a bad afternoon’s 
work. We, however, found our whaleboat scarcely 
handy enough for this fishing, and, moreover, as 
bottom fishing was so good, and the fish caught in 
that way were much superior to the Barracouta, 
we did not trouble them very much. 

As with the dolphin, I discovered that after all 
it was not absolutely necessary to have a moving 
bait in order to catch Barracouta. It so happened 
that, during our stay in Stewart’s Island (Port William) 
I was made night watchman, and it was my pleasant 
pastime every morning to watch for the first breaking 
of day, and begin fishing. While it was yet dark not 
a nibble would be felt, then as the first tender streamers 
of colour spread over the heavens, a stray tug or so 
would be felt, and by the time the sun himself appeared 
fish could be hauled up at a tremendous rate. 

One morning, for some reason unknown to me, 
the fish were slow at beginning to bite, and I determined 
to let them have plenty of time. So, leaning far over 
the taffrail, looking down into the limpid depths, 
I saw several Barracouta stealing along. For several 
minutes I watched their stealthy movements with 
great interest, until suddenly I saw one of them swim 
to a piece of fish I had dropped overboard and swallow 
it. I was much surprised, but immediately reasoned 
that as he would swallow a still morsel, there should 
be no reason why he would not take a quiet bait with 
a hook in it. So I hastened and got a strip of fish, 
put it on a hook, and let it drift slowly astern with the 


bs FIA Nee 
j sith B 


BARRACOUT 


Love’s Labour Lost 321 


little ebb that was gliding past us. In very leisurely 
fashion one of the fish swam to it, smelt it, tasted it, 
but when I struck he opened his mouth and I pulled 
the bait out. Chagrined, but still hopeful, I slacked 
away again with the same result three times. Then 
I thought I would let him swallow it, and I waited to 
see if he would do so. But no, he waited quite two 
or three minutes to see, apparently, whether I would 
pull it out of his mouth again. Finding that I did not, 
he turned round to swim away, and I had him, And 
by pursuing the same tactics I secured the whole 
party in less than an hour, eleven of them, all over ten 
pounds weight each. 

While in New Zealand I heard of an exploit on 
the part of the Barracouta which filled me with sym- 
pathy for the persons affected by it. It gives one 
a very fair idea of the rapacity of these fish, and also 
of the numerous hindrances with which public-spirited 
individuals have often to contend in their efforts to 
do good to their fellow-men generally. For very 
many years it had been the object of keen desire on 
the part of enthusiastic pisciculturists to introduce 
the salmon and trout to the beautiful rivers of New 
Zealand. Strangely enough, while the engirdling 
seas of those lovely islands produce such a variety 
and bountiful supply of fish as could be excelled by 
no other waters in the world, the streams, eminently 
fitted to be the homes of such valuable food fishes as 
salmon and trout, were almost destitute of fish, at 
any rate there were none worth taking any account 
of, either for sport or food. So, at very great cost 
and with an immense amount of care, quantities of 
salmon and trout ova were shipped from home and 
brought to New Zealand. 

In these days of swift colonial-going steamships 


2I 


322 The Barracouta — 


universally fitted with refrigerators, the safe carriage 
of ova scientifically packed in trays of wet moss to 
the Antipodes is a comparatively easy matter, but in 
the days of which I write, because of the difficulty of 
keeping the ova at a uniformly low temperature, not 
so low as to kill the life-germs, and not so high as to 
hatch out the fry prematurely, it was no uncommon 
‘thing for a whole consignment of many hundreds of 
thousands of ova to arrive in New Zealand or Australia 
putrefied. And in any case the consignees were over- 
joyed if they were able to place in colonial waters ten 
per cent. of the living ova which had been despatched 
to them. 

Then came the long and patient development of 
the ova into fry and of the fry into mature fish, a 
work which could only be carried out successfully by 
the aid of an intense devotion to, and perfect knowledge 
of, the business. Such a work had been success- 
fully carried out in the upper reaches of the pretty 
little river Clutha in Otago. Step by step the embryo 
salmon had progressed until they had reached, a goodly 
company of them, the ‘ parr’ stage of their career. 
Then, following their natural instincts, they journeyed 
towards the sea, and in due course reached the estuary 
of the river, which was guarded by a bar, as indeed 
are most if not all the rivers of New Zealand. 

Gaily the juvenile salmon disported themselves 
in the salt water before making their exit into the — 
vast Pacific smiling without. Then there crossed 
the bar into the river a school of Barracouta, their 
long lithe bodies darting hither and thither in quest — 
of prey. They met the young salmon, and, oh the © 
pity of it, in a few minutes not a solitary parr was — 
left to reward the patient watchers up the river with — 
the sight of a full-fed young salmon returning to his 


Not: Knowable at Home 323 


birthplace from the fattening sea. The destruction 


was complete, almost instantaneous, and was indeed 
a heavy blow to the high hopes that had been raised. 
Of course the Barracouta were not at all to blame. 
They did but obey their predatory instincts, but it 
certainly was most unfortunate that they should have 
fallen in with so helpless and withal so valuable a 
company of young fish, when there were myriads 
of others in the sea just as pleasant to their taste, and 
that would never have been missed by anybody. 

- Of the life history of the Barracouta there is little 
to tell, for the usual reason—utter inability to get at 
the facts. But there is considerable ground for believ- 
ing that in Australasia and South Africa at least, 
the scaleless variety follow much the same routine 


_of domestic arrangements as do the mackerel at home. 


Only of course in vastly reduced numbers. For it 
must not be lost sight of that so voracious is the Barra- 


-couta, and to such an imposing size does he grow, that 


his numbers must be kept down, or he would speedily 
depopulate the seas which are his favourite resort. 
Compared with the dolphin, bonito, and albacore, 
I should not call the Barracouta a swift fish. I 
consider him, for instance, no match for the flying-fish 
in point of speed, and I think if he were driven to feed 
upon flying-fish alone, his numbers would speedily 
dwindle. But there is always to be found in the 
ocean for such fish as the Barracouta a never-failing 
supply of squid, and upon these unhandsome but 
most useful molluscs the Barracouta of the deep sea 
must largely depend. 

Those which we caught in the Indian Ocean had 
their maws fairly full, but not of flying-fish. They 
were small fish about the size of a sprat, but evidently 
belonging to some variety of the mackerel tribe, and 


324 The Barracouta 


squid. Evidently our visitors had been in no danger 
of starving. But that is perhaps a superfluous observa- 
tion, since it would be hard to point out any fish that 
is, so vast and universal is the provision made by the 
Creator for their supply. Along the South African 
coast and in its spacious harbours, the Barracouta 
revels in an infinite abundance of food, supplying 
himself in the enormous quantites of his own young 
fry the needs of others. And incidentally feeding 
himself of course, since like all other deep-sea fish, 
except the shark, it makes not the slightest difference 
to him which he eats, his own young, or another’s. 

The Barracouta of the West Indies and the Gulf 
of Mexico, like the hake of our own coasts, is a com- 
paratively scanty species. Not only is he distinctly 
different from the Southern Barracouta by reason 
of his armour of scales but also in his habits and 
numbers, Like the shark he is an apparently morose, 
solitary fish. Very seldom indeed are two seen together, 
as if they could not bear to share any spoil, needing 
all they can obtain for their own capacious stomachs. 
And it is abundantly evident that they do not breed 
in such numbers either, since shoals of them at any 
age are never seen. Also the great size to which they 
attain is not even approached by the scaleless Barra- 
couta, which from a comparison of their habits is just 
what might reasonably be expected. Like restless 
phantoms they roam those beautiful seas, bringing fear 
and destruction with them both for their own kind 
and man. But whether the terror in which they are 
held by the latter has any foundation in fact I have 
been quite unable to learn. 

There are several varieties of Barracouta inhabiting 
the deep sea, that is to say, living at very considerable 
depths, but naturally they are seldom seen. Such 


ee 


Good-bye to the Fish 325 


specimens as there are to be found in museums present 
all the ferocious characteristics of the West. India 
variety, but in none is this more marked than in a 
species to which the appellation of Thyrsitops violaceus 
has been given by the American ichthyologists, 
Drs. Goode and Bean. The type-specimen, however, 
was caught as far north as the Le Have Bank, off 
the New England coast, at a depth of one hundred 
and twenty-five fathoms, which goes to show that 
the range of this fish is quite as extensive as that of 
the mackerel, with which, indeed, it is said by some 
naturalists to be allied. And with this brief allusion 
to the deep-sea varieties of the Barracouta we will 
bid the whole predatory family farewell. 

With this chapter I conclude my sketches of deep- 
sea fish. Not, as it will be at once observed, because 
of the exhaustion of the subject, but because of the 
limitations of space. There are a number of other 
fish inhabiting the deep sea with which, when they 
have ventured near the surface or the shore, I have 
had the pleasure of acquaintance. Chief among 
them, in my estimation, is the magnificent Halibut 
or gigantic flat-fish, which inhabits the North Atlantic 
and has been caught at the immense depth of two 
thousand five hundred feet. There are few more 
satisfactory sensations at sea than that of finding 
one of these splendid succulent fish on one’s line, 
and after a quarter of an hour’s most serious toil 
bringing the great buckler-like body, despite its 
dogged pulling against you, to the surface and trans- 
ferring it to the ship. 

These are the events from which the amateur 
fisherman reckons. How far down in the ocean’s 
valleys the flat fishes really wander no one knows 
with any degree of certainty—that they have been 


326 The Barracouta 


brought up in the trawl from immense depths is well _ 
known. And not ouéré forms either, like the majority 
of the deep-down fish, but familiar flat fish such as 
soles and flounders. It would seem as if the peculiar 
shape exactly fitted them for the strange conditions 
of pressure and the necessity for concealment which 
certainly are characteristic of profound ocean depths. 
But it is not to be expected that, however valuable 
as food the fish may be, any fishery can be profitably 
carried on which necessitates the working of the 
gear at such great depths. It is altogether too tedious 
and expensive to be profitable. Therefore the in- 
habitants of ocean’s profundities are likely to remain 
undisturbed by man until the end of things, although 
it be unsafe to prophesy. 

I conclude my remarks on fish by a short account _ 
of an extraordinary day’s sport I once had on the top 
of a mountain (a submerged one, of course) in the 
middle of the South Pacific, as showing how colonies 
of fish are formed in apparently the most unlikely 
oases, if one may call them so, of ocean. This particular 
place was well to the north of New Zealand, and some- 
where in the deepest part yet discovered of the ocean. 
I do not know its exact position, but I heard the 
skipper say that it was part of a mountain range 
to which the Himalayas must yield place for height, 
and so I suppose it must have been part of the 
Kermadec Group. 

One afternoon, as we sailed gently along before a 
very light breeze, we suddenly noticed a change in 
the colour of the water, an infallible sign of shallowing 
or of a shoal of fish. And as we entered upon the 
discoloured area of sea, which came so abruptly that 
the edge of the deep blue was very plainly marked, 
the wind died away to a flat calm. The deep-sea 


A Glorious Haul 327 


lead was cast and gave us sixty-five fathoms, sand and 
shell bottom. The skipper, being a great fisherman, 
produced a line, and baiting the hooks with a piece of 
fresh beef (we were only three days out from Auckland) 
dropped them overboard. The moment it touched 
bottom he began to haul up in the greatest state of 
excitement, calling at the same time for any and 
everybody who had any suitable fishing tackle to get 
to work fishing. At which there was a great rush, 
intensified when the skipper pantingly hauled on 
board two magnificent fish of a kind I have never seen 
before or since. They were like a glorified perch, 
superbly coloured and weighing over twenty pounds 
each. The mate, who had his line down next, ex- 
ultingly hauled up a pair of Kauwhai, the huge New 
Zealand mullet, of about ten pounds each. And then 
all hands except two joined in the fun. 

Such a variety of fish I never saw at one time. 
There were all the well-known New Zealand favourites 
except the barracouta and the rock cod. Snapper, 
cavallé, groper, the last a monster with a mouth like 
the opening of a coal sack, but in all other respects 
like a huge cod, except that he had big scales and 
a cod has small ones. Yellow-tail there were and 
trumpeter, and at least as many more species of 
whose names I have not the least idea. We were 
becalmed for about three hours and we caught at 
least ten hundredweight of fish in a shallow area of 
certainly not more than a square mile in extent, 
which was the summit of a mountain that rose 
almost sheer from the sea bed for over thirty 
thousand feet. 

The event was a fruitful topic of conversation 
among us all the rest of that voyage, for none of us 
had ever known of the like before, and we could not 


328 The Barracouta 


help wondering and wondering how so vast a number a 
of so many different kinds of fish could have gathered _ 
in that lonely spot of shallow ocean in the midat % . 


ee ae ae anid fa 7 


7 


CHAPTER XXIII 
THE ALBATROSS 


O bird that flies is more rightfully entitled to the 
proud name of King of theSea Airthan is the beau- 
tiful subject of the present story. Nor are there 

any of the inhabitants of the air whose home is about 
the raging billows to whom more mystery, more poetical 
personality, can be attached than the Albatross. There 
is something about him which differentiates him from 
all other sea birds, yes, from all other birds that fly. 
Principally because, in spite of his great size, he is at 
home only on the wing, and does not seem to require 
rest. In this latter particular he is even surpassed 
by the tiny stormy petrel, but one can hardly compare 
the little untiring flutterer that skips so blithely from 
crest to crest of the waves with the great calm bird 
that hovers majestically in mid-air, needing not to 
give one single flap of his wide-spreading wings in 
order to maintain his position against the utmost 
force of the storm. 

Nothing can be better calculated to impress the 
beholder with the marvellous wisdom of the Creator 
in fitting His creatures for their position in the world 
than the sight of an Albatross bearing a ship company 
_ in the lone Southern Ocean. Let the vessel, handled 
by the most courageous and skilful captain, put on 
what speed she may before the tremendous thrust of 


33! 


332 The Albatross 


the westerly gale, level with her mizenmast head and a 
little to windward is poised her snowy companion, 
apparently motionless, except for an almost imper- 
ceptible bending of the wings or tail for steering 
purposes. The bird seems to be held in the vicinity 
of the ship by some non-understandable magnetic 
force, for in no other way does his effortless main- 
tenance of station appear possible in relation to the 
ship while the latter is fleeing over the ocean at the 
rate of from fifteen to seventeen miles an hour. — 
And then, if aught be dropped from the ship, 
the great bird gives a sudden swerve, sometimes 
rearing in a horizontal position and, stretching forward 
his wide-webbed feet, descending almost straight 
upon the spot where his piercing eye can see something 
that may be eatable. If that something has sunk, 
the Albatross will dive, despite the hampering of his 
huge wings, and by great exertions swim downward. 
Then, when the food has been secured, or whatever is 
there found to be eatable, the bird takes off from 
the crest of a wave, just melts into the air as it were, 
without any exertion, and although the ship by this 
time may be out of sight, an inappreciable portion of 
time serves to bring her attendant into station again. 
Or in the midst of his steady accompanying of 
the vessel he will suddenly swerve to one side or other, 
as the case may be, and disappear, so swiftly yet so 
easily that the eye can barely follow him. The time 
passes, there is a sense of loss, for indeed in those 
latitudes during a heavy gale, their normal weather, 
the sea seems very lonely; when presently, behold 
our friend is visible in his old station, his beautiful 
snowy head with its dark solemn eyes turning gravely 
from side to side in keenest watchfulness. As he went, 
so he returns, so he remains, without effort, and the 


At Home Only in Air 333 


mind grows bewildered in the attempt to understand 
how he can, apparently with such consummate ease, 
resist the fury of the wind. 

‘Not that it would be correct to say that the Alba- 
tross never does flap his wings. When rising from 
the sea, if the latter is calm, it appears necessary 
for him to put forth all his undoubtedly great strength 
in order to effect his purpose. Spreading his wings 
wide, he commences to run along the sea-surface, 
the beating of his feet against the water being audible 
a long way off on a calm day. At the same time the 
great wings flap heavily as do a pelican’s, until, by 
one supreme effort, the body is lifted into the air, 
and immediately assumes its normally calm pose, 
that makes it appear as if the bird by the slightest 
alteration in the plane of his wings and tail were able 
to make the air bear him whithersoever he wishes to 
go, even in the teeth of an on-rushing storm. 

But before we go any further, a little description 
of the bird is necessary, for I have discovered long 
since that it is not wise to take for granted that readers 
know the appearance of even the commonest of sea- 
birds, although almost every good general museum 
possesses one. The Albatross is about the size of a 
medium goose, but not so ‘stockily’ built, and with 
a much shorter neck. The beak is pale yellow in 
colour, from eight to ten inches in length, with nostrils 
on the upper mandible about two inches from its root. 
This upper mandible has a formidable-looking hook 
at the end, which curves down over the point of the 
lower mandible to a length of one and a half inches 
and tapers to a very keen point. At the junction 
of the mandibles with the head they are capable of 
great expansion, permitting the bird to swallow 
masses of food, such as blubber, at least four inches 


334 The Albatross 


square, although I believe I have seen them swallow 
larger pieces than that. 

But the peculiarly distinctive feature of the Alba- 
tross is its great pair of wings. They have three 
joints, and when wide-spread the front edges make 
almost perfect right angles with the body. And 
their extent from tip to tip is sometimes as much as 
sixteen feet, or over five yards. Their breadth from 
front to back is about eight inches, but at the last 
joint they begin to taper off to a point. The colour 
of the upper part of the wing is invariably a dark 


brown, which often extends across the back, while — ; 


that of the rest of the body is pure white. 

The feathers are very thick and deep, and beneath 
them there is a coating of the softest down, as fine 
as the best of that obtained from the eider duck. 
But I regret to say that this pure soft white fluff 
is the home of a multitude of parasites, from which 
none of the birds are free. The flesh of the bird is, 
as might be expected from its habits, exceedingly 
tough ; in colour it is nearly black, becoming quite 
so after a brief exposure to the air. Also it has a 
very rank oily flavour of stale fish, making it quite 
uneatable to the ordinary person. French sailors, 
however, with the culinary aptitude of their nation, 
hang it until it is nearly putrid, and then make stews 
of it, which they profess to find excellent. 

The Albatross seldom obtains a meal of fresh fish, 
his movements in or near the water not being smart 
enough to secure them. Consequently he is confined 
to feeding upon offal. And such offal! The: carcase 
of a whale a few days after death as it floats upon 
the sea is extraordinarily offensive, but whenever 
one is found it is always the centre of a clamorous 
multitude of sea-birds, and when this happens to be 


Unsatisfiable | 335 


in the haunts of the Albatross, these birds are always 
in the majority, for they angrily drive away all others. 
It seems rather a pity that so splendid a creature 
should be such a foul and greedy feeder, but so it is. 
It never seems to have had enough, even though it 
should have so loaded its stomach that it cannot rise 
from the water. It sits there almost helplessly, 
now and then giving utterance to a harsh scream, 
as if of rage at its inability to eat any more. And 
very often it may be seen to disgorge a quantity of 
what it has swallowed, and immediately rush upon 
the carcase again as if eager to renew its rapacious 
devourings, at the same time dealing savage blows 
right and left at its neighbours. It seems to think 
that none have any right to be at the great banquet 
but itself. 

Dr. Hartwig says that the Albatross alights in 
considerable numbers upon the body of a dead whale 
and there tears its food from the giant carrion. But 
this is wrong. In the southern hemisphere, where 
alone the Albatross is found, the only bird that can 
and does alight upon the body of a whale is the evil- 
smelling fulmar, or giant petrel, an ugly bird as big 
as an ordinary duck and armed with a dirty greenish 
beak, with which it tears and rends the blubber, to 
the envious disgust of the other birds who cannot 
perform the same feat. 

I would not like to assert that the Albatross has 
a superior development of the senses to other sea- 
birds, but I believe that he has. At any rate, in 
common with all soaring carrion-eaters, he possesses 
the power of discerning, either by sight or scent, or 
some other sense unknown to us, food at immense 
distances. Again and again I have noted when whaling 
in the Southern seas that during the chase there has 


330 The Albatross 


been scarcely a bird visible anywhere, even from the 
crow’s-nest. But by the time the whale was dead 
the number of Albatrosses around the ship was count- 
less. They drifted towards us out of the vast void 
and settled upon the water until oftentimes we seemed 
to be the centre of a great snow-field. And there 
those feathered hosts awaited patiently, silently, the 
preparation of their banquet. Yet in this prompti- 
tude of arrival they were far behind the sharks, who 
appeared upon the scene from the solitude of ocean 
directly the flow of blood had tainted the water, 
and, as soon as the whale was dead, began to tear at 
the limp body of the huge mammal. 

But when once we began to cut at the carcase the 
eagerness of the birds could no longer be restrained. 
With hoarse shrieks they crowded over one another, 
even under the blows of the sharp spades, and I have 
several times seen a man, who with a bowline round 
him has been lowered down upon the whale in order 
to insert a blubber hook into its throat, overwhelmed 
by a rush of Albatrosses borne by an incoming sea 
right upon him, and he has had to grab armfuls of 
the ravenous birds and hurl them away from him 
before he could accomplish his task. But unless by 
an accident, such as the piercing of the case and the 
consequent leakage of the spermaceti, which floated 
astern like cakes of wax, the hungry hordes never 
got more than an occasional scrap or so until we had 
done with the body. 

The Albatross is never seen alive north of the 
Equator. Up to a certain latitude he can venture, 
but he is essentially a cold-water bird, and no sooner 
does he find the temperature rise above a moderate 
degree of warmth than he retires south again into 
his well-beloved regions of cold and storm. The 


The Faithful Albatross 337 


heat of the tropics would be at once fatal to him. 
Many attempts have been made to bring one of these 
wonderful birds home alive, but all have been failures ; 
because for one thing it is impossible to induce the 
Albatross to take food on board ship, nor if he did 
eat could he retain what he had swallowed. The 
first thing done by the captured Albatross when landed 
on deck is to eject the total contents of his stomach, 
as if the motion of the vessel, even on the calmest 
day, was sufficient to make him violently sea-sick. 
Other sea-birds are liable to the same disability, but 
none in so marked a degree as the Albatross. 

As a spouse he occupies a high place, except that 
he only pairs for the season, and the constant com- 
panionship of the male and female is pretty to see. 
He seems to realise his position of protector and 
provider in the highest degree, and not until the 
incubating period is over does this loving union cease. 
The female lays but one egg, about as large as that 
of a goose, apparently in the first suitable spot she 
finds upon the island where she was born. But she 
does not bother with nest-building any more than 
do the majority of sea-birds, a little hollow in the 
sand or a ledge of rock suffices, and there she sits 
upon her single egg, fed and kept company with by 
her ardent spouse, until the day when from that egg 
there appears a funny little ball of snowy down with 
two intensely black beady eyes and a gaping beak 
that seems to split its head in two halves. 

The father now departs, disgusted apparently at 
the sight of this rival in the affections of his wife. 
- She then devotes all her energies to feeding the baby, 
‘no easy task, one would think, where there are often- 
times several thousands of her own kind, to say nothing 
of mvriads of other sea-birds, close at hand. But 

22 


338 The Albatross 


she succeeds so well that after six weeks or so the 
youngster is bulkier than herself, looks, in fact, like 
a large and almost shapeless, except for the head, 
bundle of down, which retains its pristine snowy white- 
ness so as to be almost dazzling. 

All this time it is almost helpless from its fatness 
and the weakness of its legs. But presently wings 
begin to sprout and feathers to appear. Soon it is 
ready for its first lessons in flight, and tremblingly, 
with tottering steps, it toddles after its mother to 
the sea. No sooner is it launched upon this element, 
than it seems to lose its ungainliness of outline, and 
to develop with amazing rapidity those characteristics 
which will presently raise it so far above the other 
denizens of the free heavens. At last it has learned 
to soar into its proper element, the sky; fully fledged 
and strong-winged, it takes its place among its fellows, 
and its mother, her work done, spreads her mighty 
wings and departs, to meet it knowingly no more. 

Hitherto I have spoken entirely of the Albatross, 
the head of the family, but now we come to the other 
two species with which I am acquainted. I do not 
know the scientific names for them, have never been 
able to ascertain them, but to sailors frequenting 
the Southern Seas they are both very well known 
by the names of Mollymauks or Mallemucks, and 
Cape Hens. The first is an exceedingly beautiful 
bird differing scarcely at all from the albatross, except 
in point of size and a little more variety of marking, 
It is also much more active, flapping its wings far 
more frequently than does the albatross, and rising 
from the water with much less effort and consequently 
greater rapidity. 

I have been told that it is sometimes found in the 
Far North, but I have never seen it there, so that 


The Lively Mollymauk 339 


I cannot say whether the statement is a fact or not, 
Personaliy, I should be inclined to say that it is not 
found any farther north than its great relative. It 
is exceedingly plentiful in the ‘ roaring forties,’ being 
far more often seen by ordinary merchantmen than 
the albatross. It is a constant attendant upon ships 
for the sake of the scraps thrown overboard, but 
except in a gale it does not keep anything like so stately 
a poise about them. It is continually on the go, 
wheeling about the ship, darting away and returning, 
and oftentimes it may be seen snatching a morsel from 
beneath the very feet of a descending albatross, which 
drops into the water with an angry protesting cry 
and watches grimly the quick fluttering away of the 
interloper. It rarely exceeds six feet in the breadth 
of its wings, and they do not stand out quite so 
straightly from the body as do those of the albatross. 
It is so rapid in its movements that it is often caught 
while the vessel is going as much as four knots an 
hour through the water, when it requires almost a dead 
calm to catch an albatross, the latter being so very 
deliberate in his movements. 

The plan usually adopted, but entirely repre- 
hensible, is to take a sail-hook, which has a long 
stem, a straight jaw and no barb, and fasten it to 
a long fishing-line. A strip of fat pork, raw, with 
the rind on, is then fastened to the hook in such a 
manner than the bow of the hook, though concealed, 
is quite free from being hampered by the tough fat. 
The bait is tied up the shank of the hook, so that 
when the line is towing the hook shall be first seized 
‘by a would-be devourer of the pork. The moment 
the bird is seen hovering overhead, the bait is flung 
out and the line let run as rapidly as possible. Thus 
until the whole of the line is run out, the bait is nearly 


340 The Albatross 


stationary in the water, except that it is sinking. 
As soon as the bird sees the bait fall he drops into 
the sea and dives for it; the moment he seizes it the 
fisherman hauls in, and in nine cases out of ten the 
sail-hook catches in the hook of the beak. The bird 
spreads its wings wide, thrusts its feet forward against 
the water and shakes its head vigorously, but to no 
purpose; the steady strain is kept up, and presently 
the beautiful creature is landed on deck, all its grace- 
fulness gone. It is a helpless arrival in a strange 
sphere surrounded by ruthless enemies. Then it 
is slain, but so that the snowy whiteness of the skin 
may be kept unsoiled, the poor bird is usually strangled 
or beaten on the head with a belaying-pin, both of 
which barbarous methods of treatment have to be 
persevered in for some time in order that the fell 
purpose may be effected, as the bird is very tenacious 
of life. 

The Cape Hen is a busy brown alive tak: with 
a dirty white beak, exceedingly plentiful in the same 
habitat as the albatross and mollymauk. It has 
no relieving tint at all, its sober plumage seeming 
quite out of place among the snowy gatherings of 
its far more beautiful comrades. In fact, I should 
say that among the many aerial tribes of ocean it is 
the most dingily clad. The sailor of old used to know 
it very well, for it came much more readily to his 
hook than the other birds, and the long hollow bones 
of its wings made him excellent pipe-stems. So of 
course did those of the albatross and mollymauk, 
but they were much less easily obtained than those 
of the Cape Hen. 

Another fad of the sailor was to fashion a tobacco 
pouch out of the feet of these birds, a task demanding 
much patience, and the resultant bag being by no 


THE ALBATROSS. 


[To face p. 340. 


His Story 341 


means serviceable. In fact, it was on a par with 
the shark’s backbone walking-stick over which so 
many weary hours used to be spent, the product 
being neither useful nor beautiful. The membraneous 
covering of a sea-bird’s feet is double, and if the foot 
is cut off at the knee-joint by careful manipulation 
the bones may be withdrawn, all but the nails at the 
extremities, which are left for ornament. Then the ad- 
hering webs may be gently separated, and so the foot 
becomes a bag, the sides having a natural join which 
does not require a seam. But it does seem a trivial 
purpose for which to slay a beautiful inhabitant of 
the sea. Moreover, I can say with certainty that I 
have never seen one used for carrying tobacco. 

And now, as I have done before in the case of 
Deep-sea Folks, let me endeavour to sketch for you 
the career of the young Albatross. He whom we 
saw but lately hatched out upon an outlying spur 
of the ‘ Crozets that tusk the Southern Pole.’ Let 
him tell his own story: ~ 

How well I remember following clumsily my 
mother down to the sea. Until then I had never 
stirred from the little hollow of sand which was all 
my world. I was not even conscious that of my own 
kind there was an enormous company near me. All 
my sensations centred in one, hunger and its satisfying. 
I felt myself growing, of course, and every now and 
then would stretch out stumpy, down-covered wings, 
but hunger was my only real feeling. My mother 
fed me continually, as it seemed to me she had hardly 
left me before she was returning, but even so I was 
angrily squawking for her before she reached me. 
And no sooner had the food slipped down my wide 
gullet than I was ready for more. It was my sole 
object in life. 


342 The Albatross 


But when the moment came that she called me 
to come, and the great outside world broke upon 
my astonished gaze, I instinctively obeyed her, feeling 
in every muscle of my body a summons to action. 
It was a rugged way we traversed, bestrewn with 
youngsters like myself, many of whom were bound 
on the same errand, but it all seemed in some curious 
way familiar. When, however, we reached the sea’s — 
margin and my mother fondly led me in, the water 
greeted me with a roar and a dash of white foam that 
flung me gasping and kicking back upon the sand. 
Yet I felt quite unable to quit the attempt and wait 
for a more propitious occasion. Again and again — 
I made a trial, encouraged by the easy way in which 
my mother rode over those insolent breakers in absolute 
supremacy. 

And of course at last I succeeded. A smaller 
breaker than usual let me pass, and I found myself 
in the midst of a wide blue heaving plain, my mother ~ 
by my side, drinking the salt water with great relish. 
And then to my horror she spread her great wings 
and ran along the water away from me. Suddenly 
she bounded into the blue above and circled over me 
with infinite grace, gently wooing me to join her with 
softest sounds of love. But I dared not. The imi- 
tative instinct within me was very strong, but I could 
not for some time obey it. When at last I did try 
to run along the water after my mother, I only collapsed — 
in a draggled heap. But that experience, instead 
of daunting me, seemed to string up my nerves, and 
I tried again almost immediately. Indeed, I could 
not help doing so, for there was within me a power 


pushing me forward irresistibly. At last with one 


great effort I soared into the air. Ah! the delight — 
of it, the unspeakable joy of finding oneself master 


San 


Elementary Education 343 


of his own element! I circled round and round slowly, 
my breast swelling with the pride of life, and my mother 
hovering by my side gave utterance to low, gentle 
sounds of joy. Together we returned to my birth- 
place, my first lesson well and fully learned. I settled 
down upon the familiar spot, and my mother went 
back to the sea to forage for us both. 

I went away no more that day, but on the next 
morning awoke and stretched my new wings crying 
clamorously for food. But my mother was already 
on her painful way down to the sea, and, except for 
a reproachful look in my direction occasionally, paid 
no heed to me. So I followed her quickly. I wanted 
food, and I felt that I might get some sooner if I made 
an effort myself. We launched ourselves together, 
this time without any difficulty on my part, for I 
had learned how to bear myself in relation to the water. 
No longer were the smoothly rolling waves as they 
swelled in upon the beach able to fling me, a much- 
bedraggled bunch of patchy fluff with ungainly wings 
and gaping beak, back upon the sand. 

And moreover that morning we had only flown 
a short distance when the beautiful form of my mother 
gliding along before me suddenly stopped, her feet 
shot out before her, and down she came, I following 
her: The water was alive with squid, and all that 
we needed to do was just to scoop them in as fast 
as we would. The other birds of all kinds saw us 
drop, and before we had been eating a minute the air 
was dark overhead with them hurrying to the feast. 
My mother dealt fierce blows at any intruder that 


came within reach, and I followed her example in- 


stinctively, not that there was any need to drive 
others away, for the supply was vast enough for an 
enormous host of our fellows, but because it is natural 


344 The Albatross 


for us to suppose that there will not be sufficient 
for us. 

Presently I found that by no possibility could 
I squeeze in one more delicious morsel, and after 
ungratefully meditating awhile upon the curious 
discovery that while I still desired to eat, I had no 
storage room, I essayed to rise and fly homeward. 
But that too I found out of the question. And my 
mother was in a like condition. Do not think us 
greedy—if we do eat voraciously, and grumble that 
we can hold no more when food is so abundant, it 
is because we know so well how often we must go 
for days and days without anything at all to sustain 
us but a sup or so of the bitter brine beneath us. I 
did not know this experimentally, of course, but the 
sense of its possibility was there, inherited from my 
parents. 

As we sat gently rocking upon the smooth swell; 
surrounded by struggling, shrieking birds of all sea- 
kinds common to those isles, there was a sudden rushing 
away of the nearest of our neighbours, a great shadow 
came between us and the sun, and a mighty Albatross 
of purest white descended gracefully by my side. 
He made a careless lunge at me with his enormous 
beak, which I only just evaded by a desperate effort, 
for I could hardly move, and then leisurely folding 
one vast wing after the other went on feeding, dis- 
daining any notice of his fellows. None of them came 
near, they scemed to have far too great a regard for 
their safety to venture within his reach, so that he 
had quite a large area of sea to himself. 

I was terribly alarmed, but helpless to get away 
as the others had done, being so much overloaded 
with food. But he took no further notice of me, 
although I was so close, and I kept as still as possible 


Eh a 


Parental. Amenities 345 


lest he should. Presently he too had eaten his fill, 
and I noted with terror that he was swimming steadily 
towards my mother, who swam away, it is true, but 
not with any vigour, although I could see her glancing 
apprehensively over her shoulder at him. Presently 
he was by her side, and laying his great beak across 
her neck he caressed her gently, at the same time 
uttering a pleasant little musical sound entirely unlike 
the usual strident shriek of our people. What it 
meant I did not know. Curiosity overcame my fears, 
and I swam heavily towards the pair to see, if I could, 
what this behaviour meant, when to my horror the 
new-comer suddenly turned and, rushing at me, struck 
me so heavy a blow with his hooked beak that the 
flesh was torn off a portion of my back and my snowy 
plumage became red. I tried to escape, but still could 
hardly move, until suddenly the impulse came upon 
me to disgorge a portion of what I had eaten. As 
I did so, I felt easier and was able to rise. With all 
the strength at my command I fled away, nor even 
looked behind until I regained the old spot where I 
had been hatched. There I waited, full of miserable 
apprehensions lest that terrible bird should come 
and destroy me. Had I only known it, or my fears 
have allowed me to look back during my headlong 
flight, he was not pursuing me—I was altogether 
beneath his notice, except when I came too near 
him. 
The day passed slowly away, but my mother 
did not return. I became hungry, but I was afraid 
to move. Flocks of my neighbours returned from 
their labours and settled down on their respective 
spots, inquisitive little birds and cunning crabs ran 
all about me, but I was entirely alone. In vain I 
strained my eyes longingly seaward, until the sudden 


346 _ The Albatross. - 


dusk fell, the stars peeped out, and only a few white — 
birds were still unable to settle down. Presently, 

in obedience to a compelling need, I tucked my head 
into the cosy underside of my wing and forgot my ~ 
new trouble and loneliness in a sound sleep. E 

Morning twroke’ in “Stores sind APRN: heet-g/ GREE a 
snow blotting out all sight of the surrounding land — 
and sea. I huddled closer down upon the sand, 
shivering in spite of my warm garment, and missed 
my mother. I was very hungry, and that fierce ~ 
sensation was driving me forth to seek food. But — 
when even the old birds were loth to leave their nests 
what could a fiedgeling hope to do? Oh, how I longed 
for the strong tender guide and careful provider that 
I had lost! Never again was I to know her, and ~ 
presently, hardly knowing what I did, I gathered all — 
my forces and rushed down to the sea. A huge breaker 
caught me, hurled me high on its crest in a smother 
of blinding spray, from which I took off into the snow- 
laden air, stretching my wings with a sense of power 
that was exhilarating and uttering a long shrill cry 
born of hunger, anger, and defiance. 

So I soared aloft and at right angles to the wind, 
using it in that mysterious unexplainable way that — 
we have to speed me forward, but whither I did not — 
know, could not recognise the sense of direction I 
possessed, yet I knew I was going right. And presently — 
a delicious scent, the strong odour of a decaying whale, 
greeted me, and, with a prompt lowering of my pinions 
and extension of my feet, I went down, down into 
the midst of a great company of my kind engaged 
in a mighty banquet. It was a stupendous scene, ~ 
for it seemed as if it were a gathering of all the tribes 
of air and sea. The storm thundered, the birds 


I Take my Place 347 


screamed, the waves of the sea were all torn and boiling 
myriads of hungry fish who were seeking 
of the feast, and in the midst of it all 
lay solemnly still, majestic in death, the body of 
the feast. Heedless of passing blows, only lunging 
back at the givers, I fought my way into the middle 
of the tumult and found food, fat; delicious, satisfying 
food. I ate and fought and shrieked with the rest, 
all the time feeling sensible that I was now a free 
citizen of the ocean, henceforward able to hold my 
own among my kind. 

~My hunger satisfied, I drifted away from the tre- 
mendous clamouring crowd, and quietly rocking upon 
the mighty billows which swept up from the South 
Pole like walls of water, I slept as peacefully as I 
had ever done beneath my mother’s sheltering wing. 
I was not in the least disturbed by the incessant 
coming and going of multitudes of birds, any more 
than I was by the uproar of the storm or the hissing 
of the spindrift about me ; I was in my own rightful 
realm, and fully conscious that it wasso. No necessity 
was laid upon me to rise from my rolling couch, so 
that the mass of food I had eaten was fully digested, 
and when I at last became conscious that it was time 
to seek more food I felt splendidly grown and fit for 
action. I rose on the wing and returned to where, 
very greatly reduced but still enormous, the body of 
the whale floated surrounded by vociferous birds as 
thickly as ever. The sight invigorated me, and with 
a long scream of triumph and defiance I again took 
my place at the great meal. 

Another feast, another rest, and I began my long 
roaming. I followed one ship for many days, easily 
keeping up with her at her utmost speed, in fact my 
motion was so easy though so swift that I was barely 


fe 
i 


348 The Albatross 


conscious of any effort, except to restrain myself from 
shooting past her. I got to know the appearance of 
the creatures on deck, as they certainly got to know 
me, for often I would poise myself quite low down to 
windward and gaze with full, unwinking eyes upon 
their faces, while they in turn stared most curiously 
at me. I grew. quite to like them, especially as they 
fed me bountifully, although I grieve to say that I 
was often shamelessly robbed by the small fry that 
clustered in the vessel’s wake and because of their 
insignificance were able to descend and arise very 
much quicker than I could. For the same reason 
they were able to evade my righteously angry attempts 
to deal with them as they deserved. 

Then a horrible thing happened. The wind died 
away until the ship lay almost motionless, and because 
there was no use in flying continually around her now 
that she was still, and as I was loth to leave her, I sat in 
quiet dignity on the water near her. Presently I saw 
a beautiful piece of fat floating near me, tugged at by 
some Cape pigeons who were unable to rise with it for 
some strange reason. I drove them away, for how 
dared they thus encroach upon my preserves? and 
seized it myself. No sooner had I done so than I 
found myself being dragged through the water forward 
by my head. In vain I spread my wings, shook my 
head vigorously from side to side, held my broad feet 
out in front of me. I found myself lifted in air and 
suddenly dropped upon a smooth white surface, very 
hard to my feet. I became violently sick and ill, but 
I was surrounded by the creatures I had so long seen 
standing on the ship, and they only jeered at me. 
Worse than that, one seized my beak, while another 
riveted a small chain around my neck, and daubed 
circles round my eyes with some red sticky stuff. 


LEFT TO HIS OWN RESOURCES, 


(To face p. 349. 


Fulness of Life 349 


Then, having thus disfigured me, they flung me over 
into the sea again, outraged, dishevelled, and be- 
wildered. 

‘Never again have I been foolish enough to eat 
anything flung from a ship in a calm without closely 
examining it; indeed, I do not care to go near ships 
at all. But alas! I have never been able to rid myself 
of that galling chain, which for a long while made me 
an outcast among my kind. Fortunately we do not 
crave company, having great powers of self-enter- 
tainment. Also we feel our royal state, and do not 
suffer the intimacy of those beneath us. At last, 
however, I found me a beautiful consort, who rather 
regarded my collar as an added adornment, singling 
me out from all others of my family as one who had 
seen and endured strange things not given to the 
general to become acquainted with. Together we 
roamed the round world, enjoying life to the full and 
supremely happy in each other. Then we retired to 
a lonely crag in the South Shetlands, whereon my 
consort became the proud possessor of a beautiful egg. 
And I watched over her, fed her, cheered her in her 
weary period of sitting, wondering much in a dumb, 
wistful way why she would not again come roaming 
the wide sea with me. But she did not, could not, 
and when presently a fluffy white ball with gaping 
mouth appeared, she forgot me altogether, and I fled 
angrily away. 


CHAPTER XXIV 
CAPE PIGEONS AND WHALE BIRDS 


HE Pintado Petrel, as the Cape Pigeon is some- 
what pedantically called by the naturalist, is a 
most delightful and cheery little bird, although 

his habitat is one of the loneliest known. If I dared, 
I would say that the Cape Pigeon is the marine 
counterpart of the peewit or plover. But an unscien- 
tific observer does get dropped upon so for a casual re- 
mark like that, that perhaps I had better go no farther 
than to say that in colour, in flight, and in voice; yes, 
and in size also, there is a very distinct and striking 
similarity between the pretty black-and-white citizen 
of the great South Sea and the peewit of the newly- 
ploughed land in our own dear home. In vivacity of 
movement the difference is in favour of the sea-bird 
—an overmastering energy seems to be continually 
impelling it to action, and I should be quite prepared 
to find that it does not sit quietly upon its eggs. 
But perhaps before I go any farther I must try to 
give a little description of this, to southern-going 
seamen, exceedingly well-known bird, though to 
naturalists hardly known at all. In size it is between 
an ordinary tame pigeon and a wood-pigeon, not quite 
so elegant in its outlines, and with a somewhat larger 
head in proportion to the size of its body. Like all 
the petrels, it has a hooked beak, which is really an 


350 


Its Restless Vivacity 351 


absolute necessity, considering the rapidity with which 
it must seize its slimy food. Its plumage is just white 
and black, white as regards the bulk of the body, breast, 
neck, etc., with a curiously regular and conventional 
pattern of black across the upper part of the wings 
and body. Its head is like a ball of black velvet, its 
feet are like the wings of a little bat, so silky and 
nervously energetic are they. 

_ Like all its congeners, and for the same reason, 
it eats whatever it can get that is eatable—that is 
to say, eatable in its very wide ideas of what constitutes 
really edible food. It samples everything, rejecting 
only that which is obviously impossible, like wood or 
pumice-stone, of which latter produce of submarine 
fires there is often abundance floating in Southern 
Seas. But its chief characteristic is its cheery vivacity. 
In lovableness I cannot give it the place of honour, 
when I remember the little darling of all the wide 
oceans, the Mother Carey’s chicken, but it is a close 
second. And Iam filled with sorrow when I remember 
how many I have seen caught or wantonly shot by 
passengers for amusement. The necessity could never 
arise, except in case of shipwreck and consequent 
starvation, for these deep-sea birds are all practically 
uneatable except when overpowering hunger compels. 
Their flesh is rank, oily, and hard, the muscles being 
indurated by their amazingly active life. 

‘The Whale Birds, so-called from an utterly un- 
founded superstition among the whale-fishers that 
their appearance in large flocks heralds the approach 
or the immediate vicinity of whales, are almost mys- 


. terious in their aloofness from man. Whereas the 


albatross, the mollymauk, Cape hen, and Mother 
Carey’s chicken, with especially the Cape pigeon, act 
towards passing ships as if they too realised intensely 


352 Cape Pigeons and Whale Birds 


the grim loneliness of the vast Southern Sea, the Whale 
Birds are content with their own company, but that 
is always in large numbers. Again, a great distinction 
from all other Southern Sea birds, who, while rarely 
abiding in entire solitude as regards their own kind, 
almost always confine their companionship to one or 
two chosen chums with whom to scour the wide free 
spaces of Antarctica, Whale Birds are never seen but 
in flocks numbering some hundreds, and that only 
when there is much food about. Yet I never saw them 
feeding at such a time. I have often seen them 
hovering about above the crowds of vociferous roy- 
sterers assisting at the demolishment of a dead whale ; 
but it seemed a pure absurdity to imagine them de- 
scending into that dread arena within reach of lethal 
beaks and mighty wings, for they are tiny birds, 
scarcely larger than the stormy petrel, and more 
elegantly built. 

The sandpiper is, I think, the nearest of possibly 
familiar birds with which I can compare them. | White 
and dove colour is their plumage, their main charac- 
teristic timidity, and their voice has a gently cooing 
note in it, as if deprecating their enterprise in thus 
apparently coming into serious competition with the 
far more strenuous inhabitants of the sea spaces. It 
is principally for this reason that I have called them 
mysterious, I cannot at all understand how they are 
able to hold their own, to live and keep plentiful in 
those stern regions. 

In the particulars which follow I hope it will be 
understood that I am describing entirely from memory, — 
my mind must reach back a quarter of a century for 
detail unobtainable elsewhere. Imagine a_ thrush, 
almost pure white except across the wings and the 
top of the head, and with wings half as long again, 


WHALEBIRDS. 


[To face p. 353- 


at recap 


ee 


Timid Sea Citizens 353 


pointed almost like those of a swift. The beak is 
straight and nearly white, the eyes, in common with 
most sea-birds, full and dark. The legs are long in 
proportion, and of a yellowish hue, feet small with 
delicate webs, and tail slender and tapering. In spite 
of the shape of its wings it does not fly with the darting 
sweep of the swallow, nor has it the bold, decided 
action of the thrush when on the wing. In company 
with a band of its companions it flies slowly, almost 
heavily for so slightly built a bird, the whole flock 
rising and falling like a wave at a fairly level distance 
of some thirty or forty feet above the sea. Their 
movements are as unlike those of the ordinary sea- 
birds as one can imagine, they appear to have no 
objective, and to be so timid that they hardly dare 
to descend and feed. Yet, as far as one can tell, there 
is no ground for this excessive fear. They do not 
appear to have any enemies, as indeed may be said 
of most of the Southern Sea birds, among men or birds 
or fish, so that when they die it is almost always by the 
operation of some peculiarly natural force. 

The only time that I can ever remember seeing 
these tiny sea-wanderers feeding was once when landed 
upon an outlying cay of the Loyalty Islands for wood 
and cocoa-palm leaves for making brooms. We had 
toiled very hard for some hours, and had at last been 
graciously accorded a short rest for a smoke. I lay 
separated from my shipmates under the shadow of a 
great rock out of the fierce noon-day sun, dreamily 
puffing at my pipe, and gazing over the dazzling stretch 
of sand before me at the bold landward rush of the 
mighty breakers. Suddenly there appeared a small 
flock of Whale Birds gliding undulatory towards me 
from seaward, and with many a graceful flutter, 
settling and rising again, they finally folded all their 


23 


354 Cape Pigeons and Whale Birds 


pretty wings, and appeared content to remain. At 
the first I took them for terns, but remembered their 
flight and also their voices, which, instead of being 
sharp and penetrating like the cry of a tern, were soft 
and appealing; to one’s imagination they were de- 
precating being alive at all. And then to my great 
interest they began to feed. Mincingly, delicately, 
they pattered about the sand near the sea-margin, 
prying with the fine points of their beaks into crannies, 
evidently finding much food of some sort, and pres: 
greatly to their taste. 

For an hour I lay and watched them until, with a 
hurried scampering together, they rose in a little cloud 
and swept away out to sea. It was a shipmate of 
mine who, strolling leisurely along beachward, had 
startled them, for which I felt I could willingly have 
flung a stone at him. As soon as he saw me he asked 
if I had seen the birds, calling them by the correct 
whaler’s name, Whale Birds, and when I grunted 
assent he inflicted upon me a foolish tedious yarn of 
there being something supernatural about Whale 
Birds. That they never ate and never rested because 
they had no feet, and other skittles of the kind. To 
which I replied that he might, had he used his eyes, 
have seen them both eating and walking a few minutes 
ago, and so have been able to enjoy the great pleasure 
of putting anybody right upon the subject who came 
to him with such a story. But he did not seem to see 
any advantage in that. 

There can be no question about the right of the 
Whale Bird to be called one’ of the Deep Sea People 
proper, that is to say, as much so as the albatross or 
stormy petrel, because it inhabits precisely the same 
regions as they do, although not’ so frequently seen. 
But there is a certain amount of mystery attaching’to 


»\ Apparently out of Place 355 


the little: wanderers, from their never being seen to 
feed at sea or ever to alight on the water, although 
their feet are delicately webbed as if for swimming 
purposes. Added to all this is their apparently feeble, 
undecided flight, which seems so unnatural in a bird 
that is met with a thousand miles from land, and that 
does not avail itself, as far as can be told, of the rest 
afforded by the sea-surface. I have never been able 
to imagine what becomes of them in a gale. In theory 
they should be hurled along like dried leaves without 
power of direction, whithersoever the storm-wind 
chooses to carry them. But knowing what we do of 
the truly marvellous way in which all sea-birds can 
and do manipulate their pinions in the tremendous 
presence of the tempest, it is utterly unwise to suppose 
that even the feeble Whale Birds are unable to main- 
tain their position and prosecute their mysterious 
business, no matter how fiercely the gale may rage 
about them. . 

As to their place of resort for breeding purposes, 
I know no more certainly than that they frequent 
at breeding time the same islets in the Southern Seas 
as do the larger pelagic birds. Also that they are to be 
found in warmer climates than the albatross and Cape 
pigeon, being in this respect, indeed, more like the 
dainty little Procellaria, which is equally at home on 
the! Equator or amid the table-topped icebergs of the 
great lone Southern Sea, I should say, however, that 
they would breed in colonies, as they are so very 
gregarious, and that, judging from the little I have 
beén able to see of their habits, they are as addicted 
to polygamy as is the domestic fowl, a circumstance 
’ which differentiates them at once from all the other 
really pelagic sea-birds. 

Before we return to the Cape Pigeon, whom, after 


350 Cape Pigeons and Whale Birds 


a very brief introduction, I left for a while in order to 
do ample justice to by-and-by, let us take a passing 
glimpse at a truly wonderful sea-bird which is fre- 
quently seen at great distances from land, but scarcely 
ever in company with another bird even of its own 
kind. I allude to the Tropic Bird (Phaeton etherius) 
which all sailors used to know as the ‘ Bo’sun,’ for 
they said ‘he carries his marlinespike for a tail.’ 
This is in allusion to the two long, slender tail-feathers 
which stream out behind the bird as he flies, if the 
term flight can properly be applied to the stately and 
dignified way in which this beautiful lonely bird floats 
along in mid-air. In size it resembles a partridge, 
but in colour favours most sea-birds by being soberly 
clad in black, grey and white—white as to the breast, 
neck, and head, and grey spotted with black on the 
back and upper surfaces of the wings. These latter 
are large for the size of the bird, but somewhat narrow. 
They are rarely flapped by the bird, who, in common 
with the albatross, prefers to float in the air, and uses 
that element to propel it wherever it wishes to go by 
dexterous steering, to the fussy flutterings of less 
dignified citizens of the upper atmosphere. Its legs 
are very short and its feet very small, which, taken 
in conjunction with the length of its curious and delicate 
tail, has led to the assumption that it spends most of 
its time on the wing. Yet it is supposed by naturalists 
that these birds make a point of visiting the rocks of 
lonely islets which are their homes every night, and 
this because they are not seen to feed at sea. That I 
cannot believe, from the immense distances which I 


have seen them from land, and also because on going ~ 


aloft to loose a royal on a fine night I have often heard 
their peculiar low cry, and seen the shadowy creature 
flit past like an uneasy ghost. 


Tn ee ee ee 


ie. 


a 
oe ee: 


beter 


io 
itt 


; 6b en 
THR eae” : 
be fant 


g 
FF AEP BLS 


STRANGE COMPANIONS, 
[To face p. 357 


Aristocratic Aloofness 357 


But I admit that I have never seen them feed. 
In the crow’s-nest of a whaler, when lazily turning to 
and fro on the Line grounds, I have often been kept 
pleasant company with by a bos’un, who just floated 
near, suspended in the clear ether, apparently fully 
engaged in the endeavour to decide what sort of strange 
bird I was. All the two hours’ spell he would remain, 
hardly moving a feather, and when, after my four 
hours’ watch below had been spent and I mounted 
to my lofty perch again, there he was still. I never 
saw such a bird descend more than a few feet ; never 
saw him manifest the slightest interest in anything 
except the mastheads of the ship. And I have won- 
dered, until my curiosity has been almost unbearable, 
how the pretty solitary lived—in fact, despite com- 
mon-sense and reasoning power, there would obtrude a 
feeling of the uncanny, especially after gazing stead- 
fastly into the deep dark eyes of the bird floating so 
near that I could almost touch him with my hand. 
I do not recall any instance where two of them thus 
accompanied a ship, but I do remember that whenever 
other birds came about the bos’un soon took his leave, 
just floated away and disappeared, with a fine aristo- 
cratic air of disliking any society but that which he 
had chosen for himself, a suggestion of being perfectly 
content with his entirely lonely life, and needing no 
external aids to comfort or happiness. In the tropical 
seas, however, at a distance from land, except for the 
tiny petrel, bird-life is comparatively scarce, and 
apparently this is just what the Tropic Bird desires and 
enjoys, with an occasional calm and serene criticism 
of the uncouth mortals who penetrate into his lonely 
realm. 

Except in calms or very light winds the Tropic Bird 
is seldom observable from the masthead of an ordinary 


358 Cape Pigeons and Whale Birds 


merchant sailing ship, hardly ever from a steamer. 
The first may be accompanied until the breeze freshens, 
when the bird, apparently disliking the speed, quietly 
melts into the vast emptiness around; the ‘second 
poisons the surrounding atmosphere so vilely that ‘any 


bird, to say nothing of the dignified bos’un, would find — 


it an impossibility to retain even the semblance: of 
fellowship and live. Except of course: those busy 
birds that fly low, and keeping thus out of the befouled 
strata of air are able for a time to gather’a little of the 
rich harvest of eatable scraps being whirled astern in 
the foaming eddy of the propeller. rit anti wre 
I am exceedingly loth to leave ‘the Tropic Bird, as 
he possesses for me‘a fascination greater than that: of 
any other of the deep-sea birds. But he does ‘so 
persistently and successfully maintain his aloofness, 
his mysterious independence of all those external aids 
to living which we must look for in the creatures we 
study, that unless I were ‘to invent something ‘about 
him I must come to an end of my talk about his ways. 
The question of how he breeds, and how—unless he 
builds a nest in a tree, as suggested by some naturalists, 
but which is to me a thing unthinkable of a sea-bird— 
he protects that long beautiful tail of his from st 
ment is an unsolvable mystery to me. © fi 
Undoubtedly there is a species of ‘Tropic Bird 
which breeds, petrel-like, in holes of the rocks, and while 
ashore is gregarious, but it is not the species of which 
I am now writing. Perhaps it is well that there should 
remain even to-day some creatures of the upper air 
whom the lonely ‘sailor can meet and admire, whose 
comings and goings are without observation, whose 
habits can only be guessed at, and whose lives, as far 
as may be seen, are from their beginning to their end 
bound up in the enjoyment of'perfect unmolested peace. 


* . S S a , . = al ” je — - ile 
<n en eis tt i itt pe et a tt A 


Se 


My’ First Offence. > 359 


'. And now to return with some relief to my dear, 
metry, busy little friend, the Cape Pigeon, or Pintado 
Petrel, although I cannot feel at home with him under 
any other name than the first. Shame upon me, I 
first made his intimate acquaintance when outward 
bound in the ‘Western Belle’ to Bombay, so many 
years ago that recalling the date makes me feel quite 
old. I had only known him to look at for a few days 
when there fell a stark calm, in which he and dozens 
of his kind flitted joyously about us, exhibiting every 
graceful poise of their trim little bodies, and now and 
then showing what they could do in the way of diving. 
With wide-eyed wonder I watched a couple who had 
swooped upon a’ pork-bone I had. flung overboard, 
pursue it down through the limpid blue, their wings 
widespread, flashing back the sapphire light, and a 
whole stream of turquoise bubbles ascending as they 
sped downwards. They rose unsuccessful, the prize 
they thought of securing was too hard, too heavy for 
their efforts, but with hardly a pause they sprang into 
the air again and recommenced their mazy whirl about 
us as if entirely unconcerned at the frustration of 
their keen desires. We have a monopoly, apparently, 
of the foolish occupation of fretting over what might 


have been. | 


It was then that an evil counsellor whispered to 
me that I might, an I chose, catch one of those dear 
desirable birds and have it for my,own. Not only 
so, but he placed the means to do this’ ill-deed 
in my hand-a ball of roping twine, a little hook 
attached thereto, and a piece of fat: The poop was 
deserted save by the drowsy helmsman, the second 
mate (my bitter’ enemy) having taken advantage 
of the skipper’s Sabbath siesta and the utter absence 
of wind to go below and do something in his berth. 


360 Cape Pigeons and Whale Birds 


So I stole up on the poop, and leaning over the taffrail, 
cast my lure. It sank slowly but not out of sight 
of one of the busy little birds, which was presently 
in my trembling hands. I took it down on the main- 
deck and played with it, no doubt to its intense misery 
and the bewilderment of our two big dogs. The only 
excuse I can make for this cruel behaviour to one of 
the free and essentially harmless people of the air 
is thoughtless youth. ; 

But the bird was presently avenged, for an elderly 
American seaman, whom I only remember as Nat, 
came noiselessly behind me, and seizing my ear in 
one hand, took the pretty frightened creature from 
me with the other, saying solemnly: ‘ Boy, hasn’t 
anybody told ye that the meanest and lowest thing 
ye can do is to worry, annoy, and kill these lovely 
feathered things ? They do no harm, they’re not good 
to eat, and they brighten up and make cheerful the 
great ocean solitudes.’ As he spoke he cast the bird 
into the air, and giving my ear such a tweak that I 
almost thought it had come off, stalked solemnly 
away. He was a pretty good man, was old Nat. I 
ran to the side arid peeped over to see what had become 
of my late prisoner, aid there within a biscuit’s throw 
of the ship sat my late captive calmly restoring his 
feathers to their usual unruffled condition after their 
disarrangement by my rough handling. I have never 
molested another Cape Pigeon, although I have often 
seen it done. 

During a tremendous westerly gale the great 
company of sea-birds which had so long followed the 
lumbering, heavy progress of an old barque that 
certainly should not have been sailing in those stern 
latitudes at all, had gradually dwindled away until 
only one faithful pair of Cape Pigeons remained. 


Comforting Companions 361 


Usually, under such circumstances, the last birds seen 
about a ship, nay, those that never desert her while 
she swims, are the stormy petrels, but now these 
Pigeons alone were left. As one by one the last 
rent fragments of canvas flew from her yards and 
disappeared into the deepening gloom like wisps 
of cloud, the position of the barque became more 
and more critical, and it was evident that unless 
almost a miracle happened the enormous waves rolling 
up so relentlessly from the westward must presently 
overwhelm her, since she could not possibly under 
bare poles keep ahead of the sea. 

But the brave, bright spirit of the skipper never 
faltered, and with great skill and coolness he succeeded 
ii getting, by the aid of his good men, a tarpaulin 
lashed in the mizen rigging. Then carefully watching 
for the smooth after a ninth wave he let the old tub 
swing up into the wind, which caught and brought her 
into that comparatively easy position in a gale which 
we know as being ‘ hove to.’ And as she lay there, 
sometimes almost head to the mighty waves, and 
rising upon their crests until it appeared as if her 
stern was about to be buried, or falling off into the 
deep trough between two billows, until it seemed 
as if she must be rolled bottom up, the two constant 
attendants upon her, the pair of Cape Pigeons, hovered 
about her as if they were guardian angels deputed to 
preserve her from the destruction which seemed 
imminent. 

The old vessel now made such good weather of 
it, considering, that the skipper’s wife brought up 
their little boy, who was very anxious to see what 
made the naughty ship tumble about so. And the 
first thing his bright eyes lighted upon was the pair 
of pretty birds hovering easily to windward over the 


362 Cape Pigeons and Whale Birds 


broad, smooth eddies of the ship’s sidelong drift; 
and watching keenly for scraps as usual. He Pity 
his hands with glee, and cried shrilly : 

* Dada, those little birds donip last the storm 
a bit, do they ?’ 

‘No, dear,’ said his father gravely, * the sea is 
their home, don’t you see ? ” 

The child meditated for a few moments, and) then, 
his face brightening again, he cried: ‘ Well, dada, 
it’s ours too, isn’t it?’ Then, without waiting: for his 
father’s reply, he said slowly: ‘If Gentle Jesus can 
keep those pretty little birds in the midst of all this 
lot of water and big wind, of course He can keep us. 
I did feel *fraid down in the cabin, but I don’t now. 
I know what mumma meant by the story about Gentle 
Jesus and the five sparrows sold for two ‘fardens. 
Not one of ‘them can fall in the sea sieges your 
Father.’ 

The man at the wheel gerne his oibelionbd 
sleeve across his eyes to wipe away the salt spray, 
the skipper turned away and cleared his throat, and 
the mother, tightening her hold upon her boy, felt 
a-tear trickle down her drawn cheék; but all three 
realised the value of the message brought them by 
the child, entirely independent of their knowledge 
of the inexorable operation of natural forces. And 
it is safe to say that thenceforward, in spite of the 
walty state of the almost worn-out vessel, of their 
sorely hampered condition for fighting the stern 
elements in that rugged quarter of the globe, they had 
all gained immensely in the essentials for fighting 
the ‘good fight which brave sailors are often called 
upon to wage, and, as in this case, with, metaphorically 
speaking, one hand tied behind them. — 

Within a few hours the gale blew itself out, and 


Wedded: Bliss 363 


shifted capriciously with snarling squalls round against 
the sun into the north-east. And this change seemed 
to bring to the minds (or what fills that office in birds) 
of the two Pigeons a duty that must be performed 
without: further delay.. For no sooner had the old 
barque been put upon the other tack,:and all hands 
set busily to work replacing such sails as. were essential, 
than they took two or three quick turns round her, 
as if fixing her outlines:in their memories, and then 
mounting high in air, poised for ‘a moment, and shot 
off. due south for Prince Edward’s Isle. They reached 
it before dusk, and a bleak, forbidding, storm-lashed 
place it was, to all human ideas. But the pretty little 
seafarers swept together into a sheltered corner between 
two gigantic boulders quite out of reach of the biting 
blasts and fitful showers of snow, and there for the 
first time for many weeks they nestled down together 
on the firm earth in closest companionship away 
from the surface of the never-resting sea. Little 
twitterings sounded contentedly through the gloom 
of the place, and bright eyes twinkling from snug 
crevices revealed the presence of many companions 
here on the same conjugal and familiar errand. And 
so the rugged savage rocks became beautified by the 
presence of happy life, and their usefulness as a shelter 
overtopped the sense of their exceedingly terrible 
aspect. 

That night the little visitors slept! soundly and 
unusually; for it is a peculiarity of the lives of fish 
and birds—at: least sea-birds—that sleep, which is so 
urgent a necessity to all land animals, is with them 
_ a luxury which may apparently be dispensed with 
for long periods without causing them any :incon- 
venience. At least in any reasonable quantity, for 
one can hardly call the exceedingly brief snatches 


364 Cape Pigeons and Whale Birds 


of slumber taken, say, by sea-birds on the wing, or 
riding easily the surface of gale-tormented billows, 
by the sweet and restful name of sleep. 

Morning broke coldly and drearily. The low- 
hanging sky was full of snow, the moaning of the wind 
presaged storm, and the rocks bared their fangs like 
black icebergs. But in the tiny crevice, open to the 
heaven above, though shielded from the direct blast 
of the bitter wind, the two wee birds nestled side by 
side, cosy, content and warm. The beautiful garments 
of feathers and down wherewith Infinite Thought had 
clothed them were impervious to outer cold and wet, 
so long as fuel for the hot little body was forthcoming 
in sufficient quantity. And they had each other, a 
delightful companionship wherein every desire, every 
intention coincided, not one jarring note or cranny 
for unhappiness to creep in and kill peace. So since 
there was no need as yet for active search for food, 
they sat gently communing, in tinkling notes quite 
unlike their shrill cries at sea, and frequently caressing 
one another with their beaks with a tender smoothing 
motion. 

Meanwhile outside, the tremendous elemental or- 
chestra tuned up, until about noon the awful concert 
began. The sea, outstripping the wind, as it often 
does down in those latitudes, hurled itself mountain- 
ously at those sullen rock-bases, sending sheets of 
hissing spray hundreds of feet into the air, and uttering 
a deep earthquake note more pervading than thunder. 
Then the gale, angry, shrieking and searching, burst 
upon the island, tearing the crests from the billows, 
and drenching the whole area of land with briny spray. 
And simultaneously the deep-keeled clouds, torn into 
massy fragments by the frantic storm, cast forth 
their burden of water, which, passing through the 


CAPE PIGEONS, 


[To face p. 364. 


A Strenuous Husband 365 


bitterly cold air beneath, mingled with the flying 
sea-spray in the shape of large flakes of snow. By 
mid-afternoon the tempest was at its height, raging 
with utmost fury. And the pretty little hen-bird, 
fully occupied now with her maternal cares. looked 
appealingly at her sturdy mate, who puffed out all 
his feathers and chirped a brave response, as if he felt 
honoured with the commission to provide for his 
cherished one. Just a minute or two of careful 
preparation by sleeking down the close-lying feathers, 
a quick caress, and with a sudden fluttering spring 
he was gone, passing out around the precipitous rock 
barrier almost like a larger snowflake caught in a 
returning eddy and whirled backwards out to sea. 
Here he was in the very heart and tumult of the 
storm, and no flap of his wings was needed, only careful 
and instinctive steering in order to keep in the right 
place for the reception of the propelling force to carry 
him whither he would go. It was a strange and 
strenuous quest. Now poised awhile in mid-air so 
thick with snow and spindrift that the seething ocean 
only a few feet beneath was invisible, now darting 
confidently along the green curve of a monstrous sea, 
unheeding the curling snowy crest above his head. 
Anon a meteor-like dash into the creaming smooth 
between the hollow of one sea and the broad round 
shoulder of the next, a poise with swift fluttering 
wings like those of a butterfly hovering over a flower 
in the momentary calm, a sudden plunge into the 
whirl, and forceful descent into peace, a delicious 
mouthful and a triumphant return. And all the while 
the keen black eyes never ceased their quest or grew 
weary. For over an hour this fierce search for needful 
food continued at utmost strain, then suddenly the 
brave little bird shot into the air from a wave-trough, 


366 Cape Pigeons and Whale Birds 


a large squid squirming in the lethal hook of his beak, — 
Almost instantaneously he got his bearings, and like — 
an arrow from a bow, with drooping wings; but driven 
by the full force of the gale he sped shoreward, round 
the rock, ‘and settled quietly by the side of his patient 
mate. She gently opened her ee and into it 
he dropped his prize. 

And thus in the midst of storm Bid stress the tiny 
pair took their annual vacation from sea-wandering, 
and the stout-hearted little husband his delight in 
ministering to the wants of his dear partner, at present 
incapacitated from bearing her part in the ordinary 
business of daily life. He was supremely happy, 
for who can doubt that, at times like these, even’ what 
we are pleased ‘to call the lower animals realise fully 
that it is more blessed to give than to receive ? “And 
she was happy too; for clasped closely to her soft, 
warm bosom were four precious treasures, smooth, 
rounded morsels of herself, upon which she gazed with 
eyes humid with love, as she turned them so that the 
sand beneath, though warmed somewhat by the over- 
flowing heat of her maternal breast, should not chill 
them and frustrate her fond hopes. The quiet hours 
sped on, marked now and:then by a heavenly day 
of tender blue above and placid sea beneath, teeming 
with easily won food. But whether fair or foul, 
the sweet marital solicitude of ‘the cheery husband 
never failed, any more than the genie: site of 
the little mother. 

And then came the climax of joy, when four odd 
little balls of down with wide-gaping throats suddenly 
appeared, and demanded with one querulous voice, 
* Food, food, food.’ Indeed, the father, now somewhat 
doubtful of the magnitude of his task, had all his 
work to do, and do as he would he could not quiet 


oe te i les Pe amg 


Family Duties Completed 367 


that hungry wail, except at night, for more than a 
few minutes ata time. But gradually it became possi- 
ble for his patient partner to accompany him for a 
little while, then for longer, until finally the whole 
family might have been seen out upon the restless 
billows, the children being taught their life-lesson. 
Then, as is right and inevitable in. the lower animal 
kingdom, the natural affection of the offspring waned 
as the latter became fit to fight life’s battle unaided, 
and. one fine morning the faithful pair flew north- 
ward, while their children took independent. paths 
and went their several ways. 


CHAPTER XXV 


THE PETRELS 


great family of marine birds have already been — 
dealt with by me, under the heading of albatross. — 

But I am not a stickler for adhesion to any scientific — 
division of birds into their varieties, and in considering — 
the Petrels my mind is mainly fixed upon one species — 
only, the tiny creature known as the Stormy Petrel, — 
or to sailors most affectionately and inconclusively — 
as the Mother Carey’s Chicken. Why Mother Carey © 
or why chicken is a mystery. Who Mother Carey © 
may represent in the seafarer’s mind I really cannot — 
imagine, unless she be Davy Jones’s aunt; but even © 
so, to compare the Stormy Petrel with a chicken, © 
either Mother Carey’s or another’s, has always seemed — 
to me a great error of judgment. I know and love © 
chickens thoroughly, but between them and the Stormy — 
Petrel there is not one single point of resemblance, — 
except that they are both birds. For the chicken — 
is essentially a domestic creature, delicate, full of — 
liabilities to ailments, needing great care and a snug 
roosting-place every night, if it is to be kept alive. 
But the Stormy Petrel! Tiniest yet sturdiest — 

of all sea-birds, ranging all over the wide, wild ocean, — 
lilting fearlessly under the curve of a mighty Cape — 
Horn sea, or skimming swallow-like over the glassy — 
surface of the Equatorial Current; equally at home ~ 
368 


ROPERLY speaking, several members of this 


THE FULMAR PETREL (STINKER). 


[To face p. 368. 


A Lovable Sea-Bird 369 


on the weather scarp of a frowning iceberg, or around 
the pleasantly lapped beach of a coral atoll in mid 
Pacific; cheery, indomitable little waif, who with 
a heart as big as a grain of mustard seed could help 
loving you? I could not wish the Bible other in any 
respect than it is, but somehow I have always longed 
that mention of the Stormy Petrel had been made 
in it. I rejoice to note the gentle Saviour’s reference 
to the sparrow, to the dove, to the hen gathering 
her chickens under her wings; but I have never 
seen the Stormy Petrel flitting between crest and 
hollow of the mighty storm-waves in mid-ocean, 
when the great ship was being tested in every fibre 
of her build, but I have thought how much I should 
have liked to see that dear wee brave thing mentioned 
in the best of all books. 

The Stormy Petrel (Procellaria pelagica) is a black- 
and-white bird of about the bigness of a thrush. Its 
wings are somewhat broader and sturdier than those 
of the latter bird, and its legs are longer—very long, 
in fact, in proportion to its size for a sea-bird. With 
the tiny webbed feet attached, they look as if made 
of black silk, and they are much more in evidence 
than those of any of the other pelagic birds, from an 
inveterate habit this Petrel has of stretching them 
out one after another, and just touching the water 
with them as it skims over the surface. For the Petrel 
does not fly high; no one ever saw a Stormy Petrel 
twenty feet above the sea unless it had been taken 
there, or was at its nesting-place, of which more anon. 

Its principal characteristic is, I think, insuscepti- 
bility to fatigue. It does seem to have solved the 
‘secret of perpetual motion. In the course of fifteen 
years’ voyaging, scarcely a day of which while at sea 
has passed without seeing these dear little birds, | 


24 


370 . The Petrels 


have never seen one at rest. When feeding they do | 
not settle on the sea; they hover over the wave and — 
peck at their food, whatever it may be, much as a — 
butterfly hovers over and sips at a flower. But the © 
idea of resting upon the sea-surface never seems to — 
occur to them, either by day or by night; for ona — 
fine night in the middle watch—that is) from twelve — 
to four-—-I have often watched the little dark shapes — 
still flitting around, and heard, by listening closely, — 
their low, twittering: cry. This faculty alone would — 
in so small a bird have given ‘them a mysterious — 
importance in the eyes: of sailors, but in addition — 
to that there is the fact of their constancy to ships — 


everywhere. There are parts of the ocean where 


no birds but these are ever seen by the sailor; ‘but — 
I have never sailed anywhere, from Behring Straits — 
to Antarctica, from Labrador to the Crozets, where 
I have not seen these little nomads of ‘the sea. Of 
course, and I am rather tired of pointing it out, they, — 
like the dolphins and fish, cannot accompany a swift — 
steamship as they used to the leisurely wind-jammer, © 
and in consequence future generations of seafarers — 
will not know them at all—a very serious loss. 

Naturalists declare that the Stormy Petrels in 


one ocean differ from those in another, while at the 7 


same time admitting that varieties from the Southern — 
Pacific have been seen in Britain. Common ‘sailors — 
like myself prefer to believe that all this nice division — 
into sub-families, except for purposes of high science, — 
has no value, and, indeed, very often we know that 
varieties have been tabulated between ‘birds’ and — 
fish of exactly the same character on account of some — 
little peculiarity. One property of the Petrels, ‘both 
large and small, has often been noted, their peculiarly — 
musky smell, which extends to their eggs both outside — 


A teen OM rs cc tae Em 


An Universal Scent 371 


and in, and may be recognised, no matter how long 
a period has elapsed since those hollow shells were 
_ added to the collector’s cabinet. 

» Here I feel that it may be pardonable to digress 
for a few lines‘into considering the extraordinary. 
fact of the universality of the scent of musk. On 
shore we are, of course, very familiar with it in its 
most delicate and delightful form, namely, that 
emanating from the. pretty little plant, Mimulus 
moschatus, which will, with such slight encouragement, 
perpetuate itself year after year, and make the whole 
garden fragrant on summer evenings, especially after 
a light rain-shower. But for the needs of the per- 
fumer the Himalayas are scoured in order to secure 
the musk pods of a certain kind of deer, which are 
so'intensely odoriferous as to induce bleeding at the 
nose in many people who take an incautious sniff. 
The musk rat’s tail, not even his scent sac, but his 
tail, will suffice to perfume a drawer for a musk lover 
for many years; in fact, once that scent is diffused 
it is improbable that the receptacle containing it 
ever loses it again. The cruel and hideous saurian 
that slimily awaits its prey at Indian village fords, 
in’ South American creeks, and Australian back- 
country brooks is redolent of musk, pungent, nau- 
seating, and never-to-be-forgotten odour that it: is. 
The marvellous ambergris of the sperm whale, although 
only faintly smelling of musk itself, has certainly 
one quality amidst all the fabulous ones credited 
to it, of enhancing tenfold the power of any perfume 
to which it is added during the process of distilla- 
tion. And any one who has ever had occasion to 
use a tube of sepia or stick of China ink, has probably 
tested its genuineness by smelling it, the faint yet 
penetrating odour being immediately apparent. 


372 The Petrels 


Now as far as the genesis of musk in land animals — 
is concerned I am unable to offer any opinion. But — 
the power of ambergris, the scent of sepia, the muski- — 
ness of Petrels and their eggs, are only to be referred — 
to one origin—the squid or cuttle fish in all his varieties, — 
and how numerous they are let Mr. Edgar Smith, the — 
erudite curator of the mollusca at South Kensington, _ 
tell you—I cannot. Again and again I am conscience- 
smitten at having ever said a word against the squid, ~ 
for at every turn in discussing the lives of the Deep- | 
Sea People aerial and marine, I find that without — 
the squid the other creatures simply could not be. — 
He is the basis, as it were, on which they are built. — 
This is most especially the case with regard to my 
tiny friend the Stormy Petrel. So feeble, so small — 
is he, that any competition with the ordinary sea bird 
in the universal struggle for food, or any capture — 
of fish in mid-sea, are alike out of the question. But — 
the languid Loligo, the little squid of an inch or so in ~ 
length, is always handy on the surface, easy of capture 
by even so slight and weak a bird as the Stormy Petrel, — 
and in this way the latter little hungry creature is — 
fed. More times than I can remember I have seen 
the little fellow in the midst of its dartings to and — 
fro in the wake of our flying ship, well on one side of — 
us, where it could not have been possible for anything — 
dropped from forecastle or galley to float, pause sud- — 
denly, and with fully stretched legs and quickly — 
fluttering wings reach down to the creaming surface, — 
and snatch something therefrom with a shrill cry — 
of satisfaction. That something was invariably a — 
little squid, a boneless succulent morsel created to — 
that end, without prevision or possibility of feeling 2 
pain, and consequently perfectly happy even while in — 
process of transition into other forms of usefulness, j 


Se ee ee 


STORMY PETREL TEACHING ITS YOUNG TO FLY. 


(To face p. 373 


The ‘ Foul’ Petrel 373 


For a brief space, and before entering into the 
family history and sea-going career of the tiny wee 
wanderer I love so well, I must pay the compliment 
of notice to an almost unique member of the family, 
the Fulmar Petrel. Its front name indicates to those 
conversant with Scottish idioms the prevalent cha- 
racteristic of the bird. The word has been crudely 
translated by the practical Americans into an un- 
pleasant but entirely appropriate Anglo-Saxon equiva- 


lent, Stinker. The reasons for this coarse cognomen 


is self-evident ; the bird is really the skunk of the 
feathered world; and on the principle, I suppose, 
that the more unpleasant the remedy the more certain 
the cure, the islanders of St. Kilda seize the living 
bird and squeeze from its throat a little oil, a table- 
spoonful or so, which is considered to be an infallible 
remedy for chronic rheumatism. I will not say that 
the remedy is worse than the disease, but certainly 
those using it deserve to get cured. It almost helps 
one to understand the Chinese predilection for the 
application of the moxa, a red-heated iron, to an 
inflamed part for curative purposes. But Pennant, 


that entirely unreliable but most delightful writer, 


says, that no bird is of such value to the islanders 
as this. It supplies them with oil for their lamps, 
down for their beds, a delicacy (!) for their tables, 
and a medicine for their distempers. 

In the Southern Seas among whalemen it is 
notorious as being the only bird which, in the midst 
of waiting thousands, will fearlessly perch upon the 
body of a dead whale, and begin tearing at the skin, 


. in the hope of getting an advance subscription to its 


dinner fund. It comes down with a thud, and hence 
the terrific threat of the Yankee whaling officer : 
‘Tl “light on ye like a Stinker on a carcase,’ Not 


374 The Petrels — 


even the most enthusiastic of Nature lovers could — 
truthfully profess to see any beauty in a Fulmar. — 
Its colours are nondescript, dingy; its beak huge — 
and cabbage-water green. In numbers south of the ~ 
Line it is to seek, only up north, in those untilled — 


regions of cold and storm, does it flourish in vast — 


flocks, and provide a patent medicine for St. Kildians. — 
Among the almost inaccessible rocks of the Hebrides — 


it breeds, but nowhere in such numbers as at St. — 


Kilda, affording to the hardy lonely islanders, who — 
have long learned not to be fastidious, a never-failing 
means of livelihood. Although one would have — 
thought that a Fulmar’s egg for breakfast would act — 
as a sure discouragement against any further experi- — 
ments in the direction of egg eating, from the ex- 
ceedingly rank and inimitable odour thereof, these — 
dainties are so highly thought of by the St. Kildians — 
that the collecting of them forms the principal occu- — 
pation of the islanders. In it they continually risk — 
their lives, as the bird roosts in the most inaccessible — 


places, on ledges a few inches wide, worn in the faces 


of perpendicular or overhanging precipices. In like 


manner also do the islanders collect the live oil from — 


the bird’s stomach ; just a few teaspoonfuls of clear J 
but intensely fetid oil, which the bird vomits when 


seized, into a vessel held for the purpose. Buc all — 


this is a many-times told tale, and one perhaps which " 
is not strictly within the limits of my subject. It is — 


exceedingly strange, however, that while the northern 


Fulmar is so very abundant, and is, moreover, never — 
seen far from shore, his southern brother is a solitary — 
bird as far as his own kind go, and is met with as far 
from land as any bird can get. 

And now, as it would only be tiresome venetiGdl ; 
to go ever the small differehce between the ‘varieties 


Perpetual Motion 375 


of Procellaria, and besides quite contrary to my usual 
rule, I gladly return to the Mother Carey’s Chicken 
biographically, giving first of all some few details of my 
own personal acquaintance with them, ever gratefully 
remembered. How timidly on my first voyage did 
I ask the mate, a big gruff Norwegian, what those 
pretty little birds were. How could I tell that I was 
committing a serious breach of etiquette? He re- 
plied very gruffly and unintelligibly, ‘Stern Pitter.’ 
I ventured to say, ‘ What ?’” and was at once bidden 
to ‘shut up’ and look out for myself, as if he had 
been insulted by my not understanding him. I took 
the hint and asked no more, nor did I learn that ‘ those 
little birds ’ were Stormy Petrels for a very long time, 
although, like other sailors, I of course knew them as 
Mother Carey’s Chickens. 

But they were always a source of never-ending 
delight to me while at sea, and of wonder too, for I 
could not help feeling that they had indeed solved 
the great problem of perpetual motion ; never needing 
or desiring rest apparently, and always sticking to 
the same ship to which they had taken a fancy in 
calm or storm, whether flying before a gale or stag- 
nating through many days of windlessness, as was 
common with the old sailing-ships. I was glad to 
see how the sailors generally regarded them as birds 
of good omen, and in nowise to be meddled with. 
Indeed, in my day not a few seamen really looked 
upon them as the spirits of departed sailors, who, 
never weary, flitted over the bright pure sea eternally. 
But then many seamen thus rgarded the albatross 
_ also, yet I never saw the same sincere reluctance 
to*do them harm as was always evinced towards 
the Stormy Petrel. 

“Once T'saw a man, a second mate, wearying for 


370 The Petrels 


something to do, catch one of the pretty creatures 
by means of thickly-tarred roping twine attached ~ 
to a bait of pork, which was hooked on to the end ~ 
of a fishing-line. The little bird, fluttering over the 
meat and continually touching the water with its 
feet, as is its wont, got them entangled in the sticky 
twine, and was hauled in all bedraggled, its bright 
vivacity gone, and presently lay panting and helpless 
in the grip of its silly tormentor. Fortunately the 
captain coming on deck at an opportune moment, 
saw the shameful deed, and gave that second mate 
such a wigging as I hope did him good. It was the 
only time in my life that I ever rejoiced to see a sub- 
ordinate on board ship receive a public reprimand. 

Even to the last day of my sea-service I was unable 
to divest myself of the feeling, when watching the 
movements of the wee Petrel in a gale, that they were 
sent to the sailor as an object lesson of the all-per- 
vading care of God. The mighty ship in a heavy storm 
does look so insignificant in conflict with the ocean, 
all man’s skill and genius and courage count for such 
a little against the immeasurable power of His sea, 
and is so dependent upon the faithful co-operation 
of all concerned, that it comes with a wonderful relief 
to study the tiny wee seafarer alongside coquetting — 
with the wildest waves, and untroubled by the fiercest 
storm. In nothing, I think, under heaven is the 
wisdom, love, and care of God more manifest than 
in the behaviour of a Mother Carey’s Chicken in a 
tempest. But let us associate ourselves more in- 
timately with a pair, for only by so doing can we realise 
what a wonderful thing their life is. 

That was a very lonely morning when I discovered 
that my father and mother had both left me. Ever 
since I first found myself in the cosy little rock tunnel 


My Birthplace 377 


in Kerguelen Island, my only sensation that of being 
ravenously hungry, I had never been out of their 
sight, one or the other of them, for an hour by day 
or by night. At first they used to come and go almost 
continually, always dropping some delightful morsel 
down my gaping throat, and scurrying away through 
the tunnel again as if they had not a moment to spare. 
And they would hardly be gone before I began again 
loudly lamenting my lack of food. 

But let me tell you about my home, for I never 
forgot it in all my long journeyings; when the time 
came at the fall of the year for me to return thither, I 
did so over the thousands of miles of intervening sea 
as straight as the wind blows over those mighty open 
spaces. As perhaps you know, Kerguelen is, for those 
people who use the land continually, just a desolate 
mass of rock and sand, with hardly a sign of anything 
growing but birds and seals, far down the slope of 
the Southern Sea. At one place there is quite a moun- 
tain rises straight up from the sea facing the south, 
but this mountain is split in half; right in the middle 
of it there is a crack as wide as a porpoise that runs 
through from the sea to a quiet little plateau beyond. 
All around this little flat patch, which is floored with 
black sand, there are round holes in the rocks which 
run in about ten times my length and widen out a 
little when you get as far in as you can. 

Here, in this cosy shelter from storm and wind, 
which I never felt the need of at any time after I 
left it, I first knew I was alive. And when first, 
after a long stay in that darkling warmth, I was lured 
slowly along the passage by my gentle little mother 
(I was so much bigger than she was) I trembled so that 


I could hardly move. You see, I had never before; 


moved except in the tiny little hollow where I was 


a 


378 -The Petrels. 


born. But at last we reached the opening, and to 
my amazement and fear my mother floated away 
into space, leaving me shivering there, and watching 
her with starting eyes. Feebly I cried to her to come 
back to me, but she replied with gentle twitterings 
of invitation, in response to which I felt an earnest, 
an almost fierce desire to do as she was doing, to join 
her in those graceful airy circles that she was making. 

Then my father flashed on to the scene. Where 
he came from I did not see, but there he was joining 
his entreaties to those of my mother, and every little 
while caressing her with his beak. Oh, how patient 
they were! It does make me ashamed when I think — 
of the long time during which I resisted their invi- 
tions to join them, to try those new wings of mine, 
which indeed were working jerkily of their own accord 
at my sides. How many false starts I made, until 
at last, quite by accident it seemed, I found myself 
in the air, full of fear, but working my limbs frantically 
in obedience to some hidden, unknown, compelling 
power. 

It is all a blur, all full of mystery, that first flying 
lesson. All I remember is that presently I found 
myself on the ledge at the mouth of the tunnel again, 
with a new strange feeling of triumph all over me, 
almost overcoming the trembling which had so dis- 
tressed me. I was trembling still, but part of it was 
due to joy. After that, I was coaxed again and again 
to try those wings of mine, and no more food was 
brought into’ the tunnel for me. I found myself 
growing apparently stronger, lighter and lighter. I 
did not know, of course, that the latter was really 
the case, the mass of fat with which I was encumbered 
» when first I tried to fly having become absorbed in 
my tissues, and muscle having taken its place. It 


My. First Lesson 379 


had been necessary in order to keep me warm when I 
did not move, but now as I needed it no more it had 
gone. 

So day by day I became stronger and more daring, 
until, almost unthinkingly, I dashed out of the narrow 
opening between those mighty rocks and was on the 
glorious sea, my real, my splendid home. And in 
that wonderful moment [ telt all the joy of living, 
the delight of being in my rightful place and master 
of my surroundings. I felt eager to emulate my 
parents, to do what they could not do, although in- 
stinctively 1 followed their every movement. Another 
surprise, and an essentially pleasant one ; as my father 
swooped down the side of a wave, I saw him snatch 
at a little white wriggling thing there and swallow it. 
There was another by its side at which I dashed, 
seized it, and gulped it down. Delicious first morsel, 
how sweet it was to feel that I had gained it, and that 
all this wide feasting ground was mine! 

Fora few days this finishing portion of my edu- 
cation went on, I growing more and more impatient 
of being taught, until one day my father and I hooked 
our beaks into the same squid, a bigger one than usual, 
and I fought savagely with him for the possession of 
it. Unknown to me the parting of our ways had come. 
From henceforth he was no more to me or I to him 
than any two chance-met members of our family, 
and although we returned to our home that night 
it was for the last time together. I slept soundly 
till dawn, then waking to instant activity, as is the 
custom of all our people, sped outwards to sea to find 
myself, as far as my two parents were concerned, 
quite alone. As I have before said, for a little time 
it was very lonely. But soon the natural adjustment 
took place, pride in my ability to do as my parents 


380 The Petrels 


had done, even better than they, took the place of 
my first sense of loss, and I went on with my task of 
getting food whole-heartedly. 

But now I felt no desire to return to that eed 
little nook which had hitherto sheltered me. I did 
not feel the need of shelter at all. Nor did I feel the 
necessity of companionship. Blithely I fluttered from 
wave to wave intent on finding food, nor noting how 
the grim peaks of Kerguelen were fading, even from 


my keen sight. I felt as if I had just been released 4 


for a long, long holiday, the mighty ocean for my 
playground, abundant food at my feet, and the possi- 


bility of weariness withheld. Ah, I was so happy! _ 


I flew on and on, unheeding whither, taking note of 
an occasional lordly relation, a huge albatross, or a 
flight of Petrels of much greater size, but, as I noted 
with satisfied pride, far less vigorous than I, only with 
none of them did I speak or stay for one moment. 
What had I in common with them—I, the self- 
sufficient, the weariless one? They must perforce 
rest upon the waves now and again; I, never. They 
could not feed as I did, their great bodies disdaining 
the tiny succulent morsels upon which I feasted so 
royally, and I was glad, so glad. 

When night fell and the sky darkened I still re- 
joiced ; when the mournful wind began to wail over 
the great spaces, and the waters snarlingly rose in 
protest, I hovered twittering, content. I was satisfied, 
why not they ? Steadily rose the wind, higher mounted 
the waves, what cared I? I was master of the whole 
wild scene, the tumult of the elements was but a 
lullaby, not to rock me to slumber, but to please my 
delighted ear, as, unconscious of effort, I still sped to 
and fro in the darkness of the great night. 

By morning I was hungry, so eager for food that 


STORMY PETRELS, 


[Zo face p. 380. 


Pride of Place 381 


all other sensations lay waiting. The storm was at 
its height, the sky nearly touched the sea. The waves 
rolled long and sullenly, unable to rise to their desired 
size, for the pressure of the wind held them down. 
The air was full of wetness, it was hardly to be known 
from the sea itself. But I was shut in from it all by 
a downy envelope, my body (you could hold three 
in your hand at once), hot, fully sheltered, palpitating 
with eager living. I skimmed along the hissing, 
curdling surface of the sea, eating my fill in peace, 
and utterly unheeding the war of wind and wave as 
I did so. But when my hunger was appeased I felt 
no slothful desire to fold my wings and sleep. Added 
energy, ecstasy of movement impelled me, and filled 
me with great content. The bliss of living possessed 
me entirely, and although not another of my kind was 
near, I felt no need of one. I was satisfied with myself 
for company. 

But presently I saw, looming up through the gloom 
of the spindrift, a vast shadowy bulk which for the 
moment gave me a strange sensation of dread. I did 
not know it; was it my island home that I had un- 
knowingly come back to? I drew nearer to it in spite 
of my fears, and then suddenly knew that I had nothing 
to dread. It was a ship, a great vessel being sorely 
beaten and battered by the mighty sea. How proud 
I felt as I saw that gigantic bulk straining to keep her 
place, quivering to the summit of her tall masts, and 
rolling in the seething smother like a dying whale, that 
I, whose body was almost as a grain of dust by her 
side, was so absolutely safe, comfortable, and free from 
all apprehension even of danger! 

I saw men for the first time. Strange beings they 
were, tottering about that great thing as I did ere I 
learned to fly, evidently not at home, evidently very 


382 ‘The Petrels 


much at the mercy of that vengeful-sea,.and ‘fully 
conscious of the fact. Poor:men! I knew somehow 
that they would not harm me, knew too that I should. 
here find food. Felt strangely certain, that in some 
mysterious way we had been friends for many genera- 
tions: that is, my forefathers had with theirs, and the 
knowledge had come down to me. So I fluttered 
about and about her, noting her every detail, and 
especially the half-admiring, half-pitying glances cast 
upon me by the men who stood clutching some support, 

all over her. 

As I hovered around her my liking for her increased, 
and especially for the sweet, the delicious morsels. 
which continually floated away from her. in the broad 
smooth space she left as she drifted sidelong. I was 
very busy, happy of course, but kept fully employed 
because these morsels did not cloy, but rather tempted 
my vigorous, healthy appetite. And besides I felt 
prouder than ever, because I was sure that those strange 
beings were continually admiring me, and wondering 
at my familiarity with the terrible sea, which was so 
threatening to them. And then suddenly there came 
the great joy of my life. Had I been able to tell my 
experience to any, I should have said that my joy was 
full, complete, but I did not know. 

As I fluttered around her for the thousandth, time, 
I met one of my own kind. For the moment I was 
indignant. The ship was mine by right of discovery. 
Who else dare intrude, and by what right ? And then 
with a sweet, low voice the new-comer introduced 
herself. ~Oh, the exquisite sound of it! . I flew to her 
side, I found her, she was mine, The climax to my 
joy was reached, it was love !.. First hunger, then fear ; 
succeeded conscious effort, sense of power overcoming, 
and now love. The sea, the sky, the ship, the food, 


My Partner 383 


the power of unwearied flight were now all leading up 
and accessory to this, the greatest of all forces, over- 
brimming with delights, the all-embracing joy of love. 
Henceforth our desires were entwined. Did I find a 
delicious morsel ? it was hers, mine the exquisite 
pleasure of seeing her enjoy it. Did she call me toa 
new treasure of food floating by? oh, the rapture 
of sharing it with her! And when a little boy on the 
deck of the ship, the weather having moderated greatly, 
said to his mother, standing by : ‘Oh, look, mamma, 
I believe that dear little bird has found a wee wife!’ 
I could have screamed with delight, had it been in my 
power to do so. 

In due time we tired of the ship, for when the 
breeze suited, and all her wings were spread again, 
she went steadily, straightly forward, so fast too that 
it became irksome for us to flutter round and round 
her, as we loved to. And besides, her company was 
no longer to us the pleasantness it had been before 
we became all in all to each other. Still, for long we 
flew side by side in perfect content, visiting many ships, 
seeing many new faces, and always happy, for we were 
never afraid. Our world seemed inhabited only by 
friends. We skimmed over seas that teemed with 
life under the continual sun by day and the tender 
violet of the sky by night, we saw many new lands— 
and sheered off from them—what needed we of the 
land ? 

We lived and loved, and were happy because we 
did. Until there came a day when we both, having all 
feelings, not to say thoughts, in common, had the need 
laid upon us to go south again. We were then trying 
to be fond of a great ship that sped, unrestingly as our- 
selves, through the sea with an everlasting whirlpool 
‘behind that we did not like—I cannot say we feared 


384 The Petrels 


it. And with one accord we abandoned our pleasant 
fluttering to and fro. Side by side we stretched our 
wings and made haste, as never before, towards the 
bleak South, nor ever paused until once more we darted 
in between those mighty walls of rock, sheltering the 
tiny nook where I was born. As we did so I felt just 
one doubt lest it should be preoccupied, but I need 
not have done so. It was ready for us. My sweet 
one crept in, I following her, until, settling down, 
she cooed contentedly, invitingly, and I, nestling 
by her side, let all things slip away into deepest 
peace. 

When I awoke my dear partner did not stir. I 
knew, and, caressing her, hastened away, intent upon 
what I understood as love’s privilege to provide for 
her. Out between the rocks I darted, found what I 
sought, and returned. It was another added joy. 
Oh, I was so happy! Of all the delights I have ever 
known—and my little life has been overflowing with 
them—there have been none like this. I worked 
incessantly, untiringly to feed her, my patient love. 
I did not know why, nor could I enquire. But she 
sat in darkness waiting for some blissful event, I her 
only sunshine, her only means of support, the one 
whom she trusted, and with reason. I could have 
wished that time to have lasted but for her. I did 
feel the need of her sweet company out upon the sea. 
And yet I was content, for I knew in some strange 
manner that all was well. But when she rose to meet 
me, as one morning I returned with full beak for her, 
her little velvety body swelling with conscious pride, 
and I saw a strange gaping bunch at her side, I felt a 
shock. Had I a rival? Indeed I had, my son. I 
had no joy of him, for I felt he separated me from her. 
She was all I needed, no third. Still, with her I 


_ Rewarded at Last 385 


laboured to teed him, to teach him, to launch him in 
life. And at last I was rewarded, when, finding he 
was well able to fish for himself, we two sped northward 


again to renew our happy journeyings to and fro upon 
the lovely sea. 


25 


CHAPTER XXVI 
BOOBIES AND PENGUINS 


NLIKE any of the other birds ot which Ihave 


been writing, the subjects of the present chapter 

are really not pelagic, that is, they are birds which _ 
must find a rest for the soles of their feet upon some- 
thing hard every night, preferably at their proper homes, 
although that is sometimes impossible. An almost in- 
vidious selection has now to be made, but one entirely _ 
necessary, since the varieties of such birds are very — 
numerous. And I have endeavoured to surmount the — 
difficulty by only taking those that are fairly familiar — 


to sailors in out-of-the-way parts of the ocean, and 


almost unknown to the majority of landsfolk. 

First in my mind comes the Booby, which is a 
species of gannet, but varying in several important 
particulars from the pretty, well-known gannets of 
our own coasts. It has a reputation for stupidity 
which I feel is hardly deserved, and is really only given 
upon very slight grounds. But in consequence of this 
reputation it has obtained this somewhat opprobrious 
name, first by the Spanish seamen who, trading in 
the Gulf of Mexico, made its acquaintance, and con- 
ceiving but a low idea of its intelligence called it ‘ Bobo’ 
or Stupid; hence our word Booby, both words deriving 
from the same root. 

Perhaps the sole reason for the idea of the poor 


386 


Stupidity ? 387 


bird’s stupidity arises from the fact that when it 
alights upon any portion of a ship, as it often does 
in the vicinity of its home, it will sit still and allow 
itself to be taken, although it has only to tumble off 
its perch to be free and far out of the reach of the 
marauding hand of the sailor. But there it sits, with 
its full dark eye staring full at its enemy, apparently 
hypnotised into insensibility, and only when it is 
grasped and its doom sealed does it begin to struggle 
vainly toescape, Really the reason for this immobility 
is fairly obvious, although I have never seen it stated. 
Of all the sea-birds there are none that toil so tre- 
mendously at their business of food-getting as the 
gannets, and the Booby is no exception to the rule. 
The big, somewhat ungainly bird, with his long straight 
beak and his gawky wings flapping heavily and con- 
tinuously, is, as I have said, a fairly well-known object 
off our north-eastern coasts, and most observant 
visitors have admired the wonderful way in which, 
while flying in utmost haste along at a height of over 
a hundred feet, he will suddenly fold his wings and 
drop, beak first, with a tremendous splash into the 
sea, emerging almost immediately after with a fish in 
his beak, and literally fighting his way into the high 
air again. 

Now, no other sea-bird, not even the lively gull, 
or the ungainly cormorant, labours like this for its 
living. The poor Booby oftentimes finds itself far 
afield and quite weary, when a tempting opportunity 
for a perch presents itself, of which it takes advantage, 
and having done so, seems quite unable to exert itself 
further for some time, even in the presence of the most 
imminent danger of capture. Why it should prefer 
the yards or booms of a vessel to rest upon to the sea 
at such times is a thing I do not pretend to understand, 


388 Boobies and Penguins 


but the fact is that it does do so in preference to resting _ 
on the water ; a thing I never remember to have seen 
one doing. 

There is perhaps another and more convincing 
reason for the Booby’s apparent stupidity. The lonely 
islets and cays which it frequents are seldom visited 
by man. Being naturally of a confiding nature, and 
getting little opportunity of learning how unsafe it is 
to place any confidence in the lords of creation, it is 
unprepared for the danger of capture which attends 
it upon alighting upon any place to which he has 
convenient access. And why sailors should take the — 
poor birds I do not know, except that the temptation 
to lay hold upon a bird that is unable or unwilling to 
fly away is almost irresistible to most men. For the 
Booby, like all sea-birds, is anything but good eating, 
being rank, tough, and oily ; while as a pet he is of no 
use at all. And I am ashamed to say that all I have 
ever seen taken on board ship were presently, aftera 
period of maltreatment, flung overboard, a piece of 
cruel waste for which there can be no possible excuse. 4 

My first acquaintance with the Booby dates back 
to my first voyage, as a small boy in my twelfth year. 
Of course, I do not know the exact part of the sea in 
which we were cruising, but I know that we were at no 
very great distance from land, for we were sailing—not 
steaming—from Demerara to Santa Ana in the Mexican 
Gulf. And one night, being becalmed, one of the men 
pointed out to me a dark object on the cat-head clearly 
outlined against the moonbeams on the sea, I don’t 
know why, but in those days any item of information 
conveyed to me in a whisper with an air of mystery 
always made my heart pump furiously ; and my feeling, 
though perhaps not exactly fear, was not at all pleasant 
as Joe stole away from my side towards that dark 


A COLONY OF BOOBIES. 


(To face p. 388. 


A Booby Farm = 38g 


excrescence on the cat-head. I held my breath as he 
crept nearer to it, and was suddenly relieved to hear 
a loud squawking, almost like that of a suddenly irri- 
tated parrot. Joe retutned to me, exhibiting to my 
delighted gaze a large white bird pitifully struggling 
to be free. Then the other men came around, and 
there was a long and voluble conversation about’ the 
bird, of which I wearied and went away to sleep. When 
I again saw the captive it had been skinned, but to 
my astonishment nothing was done with either skin 
or carcase—after a short time they were both flung 
overboard. 

Less than three months afterwards, in another ship, 
I awoke one morning, to find by the strange sounds 
and motions made by the vessel that she had run 
ashore, and when morning dawned I saw that many 
Boobies and men-of-war or frigate birds were hovering 
about us, the former filling the air with their shrill 
cries, and the latter calmly and apparently contemp- 
tuously watching us. Two days after we all left the 
wrecked vessel: (she was broken in half) for good, and 
landing upon the little sandy cay which formed the 
apex of the vast coral reef upon which our ship had 
been wrecked, we found almost the whole sandy area 
in possession of these birds, Boobies. They did not 
venture over to the rocky side, for reasons which will 
appear later, It was a most surprising sight to us, 
to me especially, a city-bred boy, to see the wide beach 
covered with vociferous birds sitting on eggs lying in 
small depressions in the sand, or going to and fro, 
either waddling or on the wing, but none evincing the 
slightest fear of us. It was an entirely new sensation 
to have a bird as big as a duck, but with twice the 
wing-spread, come flapping busily along and not 
trouble to avoid one; indeed, I was knocked down 


390 Boobies and Penguins 
twice, sini afterwards opprobriously assailed by the 


infuriated bird for getting in her way when she was — 


hurrying back to her eggs. Of course the eggs were 
a great treat to us—when did ever a sailor, rightly 
constituted, feel indifferent to the sight of an egg ?— 

and we started to gather them, careless of the feelings 
of the mother Boobies. But if they lacked sense they 
certainly did not want courage, and those of us who 
had not sea-boots on, soon found that a trouser-leg 
was but poor protection against a driving blow from 
a Booby’s beak. So the majority of us retired to look 
for sticks (of course no such ridiculously sentimental 


notions weighed with us as consideration for the 


feelings of the parent birds), and meanwhile the din 
was deafening. There were many thousands of birds, 
and every one of them seemed to be protesting with 
all the power of his or her lungs against this piratical 
invasion of a peaceful and inoffensive colony. I know 
that I felt as if I should never recover my hearing again. 

Presently, having armed ourselves with sticks, we 
returned to the charge, and gathered many eggs; at 
least I say we, but I remember that being barefooted 
I merely hovered on the outskirts of the war, and bore 
the eggs away as others collected them whose feet were 
better protected against the Boobies’ beaks than mine. 
I am sorry to say that in the struggle for the possession 
of those eggs many of the protesting Boobies were 
killed. Their bodies were brought into camp and 
_flung down, a doleful heap, for some one to prepare 
for eating. But as the helots who were invited with 
many unnecessary sea-compliments to undertake the 


task sensibly observed, ‘We’ve got plenty of good _ 


grub, an’ there’s plenty more for the taking, why 
bother about getting meat ready that nobody will 
eat?’ So there was more waste. And even the eggs, 


VT 


oe — 


Awakening Morn = 39 


gathered with so much loss of life (to the mothers), 
were hardly eatable to men who could get other and 
more tasteful food, as we certainly could then. There 
were eggs on the island, delicious, plentiful, large, but 
they belong to another story. Only the honour of 
finding them was mine, and mine alone. 

Next morning I was awake and astir before day- 
break, not because I then loved early rising, but 
because my sleeping-place was so miserably uncom- 
fortable that I laid no minute longer than I could help. 
Who would, wedged into a long row of men, as sardines 
lie in a box, with a lump of coral the bigness of a man’s 
head in the middle of one’s back, by no means get-at- 
able because of the long cloth of canvas over it held 
down by the bodies aforesaid. So I rose and strayed 
along the beach, watching the tremulous shadings of 


‘coming light in the sky, and listening to the murmur 


of the wavelets against the sand and the low beginnings 
of conversation among the birds. And then my 
attention was divided between the glory of the new 
day, a never-ceasing source of delight in the tropics, 
and the strange sight afforded by the host of busy 
birds, parents present and prospective. As it grew 
lighter their cackling grew louder, until, when the full 
day swung like a fanfaronade of silver trumpets 
across the waiting concave of the heavens, they all 
burst into a déafening chorus of cries, apropos of 
nothing as far as I could see. Of me standing close 
before them they took not the slightest heed. Those 
with young ones hatched poked at and preened them 
with their long beaks, preparatory to leaving them, 


_ and those with eggs only just laid took a parting glance 


or so at them, preened themselves, and flew—clean 
over my head, with rapidly jerking wings towards their 
free and common hunting-ground, the teeming sea. 


392 Boobies and Penguins. 


I was so fascinated by the busy scene that for long I _ 
did not stir, and so was able to witness the return of 


some of the mothers, who had been almost immediately _ 


successful, with quite large fish in their mouths, which, — 
dropping among their screaming young, they proceeded 
to distribute, at the same time keeping a bright look-out — 
upon those conscienceless, lazy marauders who a 
tinually endeavoured to steal. 

In an hour after full day they were practically all q 
away, although, as I have said, occasional stragglers, 
having been rewarded with an early catch, came 
dropping in with their prizes for their families. Then 
came my shipmates, bent on egg-collecting, but I was 
glad to see that now they were a little more discrim- 


inating than on the previous day. They examined — 1 . 


the eggs to see whether they were edible or not, and 
when they found a couple of helpless unfledged ones 
in a hollow, they merely gave them momentary dis- 
comfort by taking them up and examining them; 
they did them no harm. Together we took a thorough 
survey of the great space occupied by the nesting 
Boobies, and admired the business-like way in which 


the parents provided for the needs of their offspring, 


also the ease with which the food was obtained. The 
sea over and adjacent to the reefs literally swarmed 
with surface-fish just of a convenient size for the birds 
to handle, and they, the birds, never seemed to flag 
in their earnest endeayour to get their living and 
provide for those dear to them. Of course they were 
all very much alike, but after a time of careful watching 
I was able to single out those who were most energetic, 
finding that even here, where instinct ruled, there 
were degrees in industry as well as among men. 

The male birds had a reservation of their own, and 
seemed to be held in considerable disfavour by both 


The Pirate 393 


hatching and nursing birds, as if they had contracted 
themselves out of any right to occupy the same space. 
They certainly did nothing towards the maintenance 
of the families, being apparently fully occupied in 
providing for their own clamorous needs. The mother 
birds had their domestic cares to attend to as well as 
the providing, which led me to think more than scorn- 
fully of the male Booby as regarded his affections, 
especially comparing him with the deep-sea birds of 
my acquaintance, but rather highly as regarded his 
‘iniquitous cunning, which certainly did not justify 
his contemptuous name. But there was one recurring 
circumstance which I continually noted, about which 
I have some trouble. It does not appear very clear 
whether I should mention it here or in a later article, 
but I do not see how I am to do the Booby full justice 
unless I make some allusion to it at present, and so I 
fear I must do so even at the peril of repeating myself 
later on. I noticed repeatedly that as the mother 
birds were returning at full speed to their nests with 
a load of food (I say ‘nests’, although, as I have noted, 
the eggs and young ones just lay on the open sand), 
they often evinced signs of great alarm, and dodged 
about at full speed, sometimes rushing right out to 
sea again. 

The reason was evident. High above the busy 
birds fishing there hovered black wide-winged birds, 
whose province it was apparently to live upon the 
labours of others. And when they saw a homeward- 
bound bird flapping heavily towards the land, one of 
them would by easy stages, yet with amazing celerity, 
descend from his lofty plane, drawing nearér and 
nearer to the labouring Booby like a kestrel descending 
upon a pigeon, but in far more leisurely fashion, as 
if perfectly confident of success. 


394 Boobies and Penguins 


The unhappy matron, foreseeing the sacrifice of 
her toil and her fledgelings’ hunger, would strain every 
nerve, her angular wings working furiously and her 
whole body trembling with evident anxiety, in striking 
contrast to the calm fateful approach of the black 
descending shadow. But dodge as the Booby might, 
exert herself as she would, there would come a time 
when, like a thunderbolt, the hovering thief would 
descend, his wings nearly closed and his tail wide- 
spread. Then, alas! poor Booby, there was nought 
that she could do but drop her treasure and flee for 
her life. And the graceful villain with one great swoop 
would catch the fish ere it touched the water, and soar 
skyward again unconcernedly, as if it was part of the 
appointed scheme of things that Booby should toil and 
he should calmly reap the fruit of that toil. Booby 
meanwhile was scouring the sea again in search of 
the much-needed meal for her family, and with who 
knows what ever-springing hope that next journey 
she might evade the ravishers of her little ones’ food. 

Such a sketch as I have endeavoured to give of 
the life of the Booby may be accepted as applicable 
to all these birds wherever they live. They are never 
to be seen very far from land and never exterior to 
the tropics, for warm weather is a necessity. to them. 
Their homely virtues, as will be seen, are many, if their 
beauty and intelligence cannot be rated very high. 
And, principally I think from a fellow-feeling for 
common-place folk, I have dared to strain a point, 
and include the essentially homely Booby in this 
record of the statelier denizens of the deep-sea spaces 
to which truly it does not belong, but still cannot be 
reckoned as one of the familiar sea-birds to any others 
but sailors. And for reasons which I am tired of 
reiterating, even sailors, by reason of the displacement 


Miscellaneous 395 


of sails by steam, will soon as a class know the fussy 
homely Booby no more, 

_ About the e ceteras I have my doubts. One 
class of birds; which I do not possess sufficient 
acquaintance with to make them the subject of a 
separate chapter, I am leaving to the end of this chapter. 
I allude to that curious tribe, the Penguins. But of 
other truly deep-sea birds there are really none. The 
- great gull tribe in any of its varieties never venture 
far from land in the comparative sense, the petrels 
deserved (and have got) a section to themselves. Even 
essentially land birds are often found at tremendous 
distances from the shore, having been whirled away 
most unwillingly from their course while journeying 
from winter to summer lands, which would never 
happen to sea-birds whose habits keep them in daily 
touch with the land. Nay, and I do not think any 
apology is needed for introducing the matter here, I 
have actually seen, not once but several times, flutter- 
ing about a ship becalmed in the centre of the broad 
Atlantic, an ephemeral butterfly. The sight set all 
hands a-wondering whence the pretty waif could have 
strayed so far, and some even broached the idea that 
the chrysalis from which it came had lodged on board 
in some convenient but inconspicuous place, and had 
just been hatched out. But they were, as I think, 
very properly laughed out of court. In mid-ocean 
too, I have seen, and that where even the strenuous 
gulls did not appear, a little flight of swallows board the 
ship, as a haven of rest in the midst of the wide and 
to them inhospitable sea. I shall not soon or easily 
forget how, coming weary and hungry from the 
wheel one morning at 2 a.m., I went to the bread- 
barge, which hung from a beam in the forecastle 
for fear of the rats which swarmed among us, and found 


390 Boobies and Penguins 


perched along its edge a dozen tiny birds. I glared 
at them, disbelieving my sight for a moment, then 
reaching out I took one in my hand, and found that 
it was a tired-out little swift that had thus taken 
refuge among us, and the fact moved me strangely. 
Many such waif-visitors I have seen and in many 
seas, but most pathetic of all I think was one during 
a strong monsoon in the China Sea. The sturdy ship 
under a heavy press of canvas was striving to get 
across to Manilla from Hong Kong. It was a bleak 
dismal day, and I stood at the wheel, my whole atten- 
tion taken up with the object of keeping the plunging 
vessel as near the wind as possible without shaking 
a shred of her straining canvas; when suddenly I 
became aware of a large bird that, with heavily- 
flapping wings, was striving hard to get on board, 
yet for some obscure reason was afraid to trust itself 
to windward, lest, apparently, it should lose command 
of itself and be blown against something that would 
do it injury. For over an hour I watched its painful 
labours alone, for the second mate was leaning over 
the break of the poop in deep meditation, and it was 
impossible under sea etiquette that I should call him. 
I cannot tell you how I suffered for that poor bird. 
He came so close that I knew him for a stork—I saw 
his long neck and beak, and his slender legs tucked 
closely beneath him. And I did want him safe. I 
almost prayed for his deliverance, he made such a 
gallant fight for life: But alas! he would not trust 
himself to windward, he would persist in coming up 
under the lee quarter, where the eddy from the spanker 
poured down strongly enough to sweep away the most 
powerfully winged bird that ever flew. I saw him 
gtow weaker and weaker, still fighting vainly against 
overwhelming odds, and at last in one of his swoopings 


PENGUINS, 


(To face p. 397- 


A Quaint Sea-Citizen 397 


to leeward that fatal down-draught from the spanker 
caught him, and whirled him, a dishevelled heap of 
feathers, into the foaming sea sweeping past, and he 
was gone. I felt as if I had been watching the painful 
fighting for life of a dear friend, and I was scarcely 
comforted, when, on going into the gloomy forecastle 
at eight bells, I found a fluffy-feathered goat-sucker 
perched on the edge of my bunk, who opened the wide 
gape of his mouth at me, as I tenderly took him, 
in voiceless supplication to spare his feeble life. Need 
I say that his request was granted? I fed him on 
cockroaches (we had plenty of those), and on entering 
Cavite Bay I let him go, feeling sure he would soon 
find a home. 

But this is a digression hardly warranted by the 
subject. It is very necessary on account of space to 
pass on to the quaintest of all the feathered Deep-Sea 
People really entitled to the name, although they are 
never found at any great distance (as sailors count 
distance) from the shore or islands of ice. I allude 
to the Penguins. Their nearest counterparts in northern 
seas are the auks; but the latter are able to fly, the 
Penguin is not. It is really a sort of compromise, 
to all appearance, between a seal and a bird, and but 
for the fact that the Creator has planted it in the 
most lonely and inhospitable portion of the round 
world, would certainly long ago have been exter- 
minated. This sad fate has befallen the great auk, 
whose eggs coming now and then into auction-rooms 
command such fabulous prices. It unfortunately 
inhabited places comparatively easy of access, and 
consequently, though it was of little value commercially 
and of none at all as food, it very soon became extinct 
when rapacious man extended his sway to the fringe 
of the Arctic Ocean, 


398 Boobies and Penguins 


The Penguin, however, has been preserved from 


this fate, because the Antarctic regions offer little or 
no inducement to searchers after wealth to come to 
them. And in the days when seal-oil was valuable, 
and it was worth while to make expeditions to the 
barren shores of Antarctic islands in order to collect 
it, the Penguins were only molested for edible purposes, 
for they are just edible, with considerable culinary 
manipulation. There are several kinds of Penguins, 
varying in size from the diminutive Pygmy or Eudypiila 
minor of a few inches high, to the Emperor Penguin of 
as many feet. Most good museums furnish examples. 


But all possess the same general characteristics. 


First, their legs being very short and thick, and their 
webbed feet wide and strong, they ‘ sit up,’ as it were. 
It is really standing up like a duck stretching its 
wings, but almost perpendicularly. And this is their 
normal pose. They carry their heads, with short, 
pointed beaks, very erect, and their flippers, for the 
wing in these birds is nothing but a seal flipper covered 
with feathers instead of fur, hanging down in a ludi- 
crously pathetic and helpless manner. Sir John 
Narborough, an old navigator whose voyages make 
most entertaining reading, says that their appearance 
as he first saw them gazing at him from their rocky 
ledges was that of rows of school children standing 
very quiet with little white pinafores on. This because 
the closely set feathers on their breasts are white, 
with tinges of beautiful shades of purple and gold 
around the edges in the Emperors. _ 

Their movements on shore are almost as ungainly 
as those of a seal; compared with them a duck or 
goose glides along with stately grace. For their land 
promenades their flippers are perfectly useless, dangling 
by their sides as if broken. Why they do not topple 


. 
4 
+ a 
. a 
. @ 
a 
7 


ee ee 
- 7 . —s - 
ee 


ve ‘8 lead ——. om 
eee 


—— 


a 


| 


Careful Parents. 399 


over I cannot think, although their webbed feet are 
so large and wide, for their centre of gravity certainly 
does fall far without their bases, and great muscular 
effort must be necessary in order that the erect position 
may be preserved. Yet they manage to climb 
with astounding celerity the almost unscaleable icy 
cliffs of Antarctica, and may be seen ranged along the 
narrow rock-ledges in rows like vases on the shelves of 
a china-dealer’s shop, who has no idea of picturesquely 
arranging his wares, In places where materials for 
nests are to be found they build them or lay them 
down (there is little constructive work possible), but 
where no vegetation is to be found, they just choose 
a slight hollow and there deposit two eggs, one always 
larger than the other, which has been supposed to 
denote difference of sex. If so, how evenly the sexes 
must be balanced! What has puzzled many southern 
voyagers is the way in which the hen Penguin, when 
disturbed and fearful for her eggs, will manage to 
convey one of them away. There is a little hollow- 
ing of the body just in front of the space between the 
legs, and in this it is supposed the mother carries the 
egg, but how she holds it there is a mystery. 

The Penguin in all his varieties has a very wide 
range. All round the southern hemisphere, and as 
far north as the Galapagos Islands on the South Ameri- 
can off-shore grounds, Penguins are to be found, and 
Hartwig says that Humboldt’s Penguin, which is 
frequently found in Callao Bay, is made a household 
pet of by the Peruvians, who call it the pajaro nino. 
This he translates ‘ little darling bird,’ but the good 
professor’s Spanish is weak ; it only means ‘ baby-boy 
bird.’ The noble Castellano is splendidly furnished 
with terms of endearment. At one time it seemed as 
if the Penguin would be exterminated on all the 


400 Boobies and Penguins 


temperately situated islands, when once it was dis- 3 
covered that they were so fat that they would yield © 
a certain quantity of saleable oil. But I rejoice tosay — 


that the danger no longer exists. On Kerguelen, the 
Crozets, the South Shetlands, and such places, away 
down to Antarctica, the poor homely Penguin has our 
leave to live and be happy in that state of life unto 


which it has pleased God to call him. And this is 4 


the more to be desired, because in the remote regions 
of the south the Penguin is really the only represen- 
tative of land fauna. Even the seals are very few. 
But the Penguin congregates in his thousands, un- 


gainly, mirth-provoking in appearance, but happy, ; 


and giving to those desolate regions the one touch 


of life that they need to keep them from becom- 4 
ing, in fact as well as in appearance, a land of — 


death. 


thought, somewhat too slightingly of one of God’s crea- 
tures because of its laughter-provoking appearance. 
Why should our risible faculties be excited by any 
creature perfectly fitted by its loving and all-wise 
Creator for its life-work ? Ido not excuse the laughter, 
I only note it, and quite admit that to a sparrow, for 
instance, if he possessed the power of laughter, a man 
may be the most ludicrous figure on earth, especially 
in a top-hat and holding up an umbrella. But though 


I plead guilty to having laughed at the Penguin, I q 
have atoned. I have seen him in the water, and I ~ 


laughed no longer. For that top-heavy body, that 


pathetically peering head, those feeble-looking Sees q 


had all come into play. 


The first time I really knew the Penguin for wha 5 
he really is was when, making a composite great — 
circle track to New Zealand, we reached latitude 


Now in the foregoing I have spoken, it may be q 


° a i es PS ee wa = nce 
eT is Saat i ea a nk NIN RR il to ag mm 


A Ballasted Bitd gor 


54° S., and, wonder of wonders, it fell a calm. Between 
twelve noon and two I was at the wheel, listless and 
cold, and gaping all around me at sea and sky, when 
suddenly a Penguin popped up alongside, gave one 
wide-eyed stare at the unfamiliar ship, and disappeared. 
But he was not satisfied. Three times he came back 
to look, and so clear was the water that I could follow 
his every movement beneath it, note his exceeding 
beauty and grace, and—mentally apologise to him 
for ever having thought him ungainly or ludicrous 
in any way. I should add that at this time we were 
certainly about a thousand miles from the nearest 
land, which perhaps will justify my inclusion of the 
Penguin among the honourable company of the 
Deep-Sea People. 

The food of the Penguin is of course fish, with 
which those remote seas are teeming. And this 
explains his amazing agility under water, for who 
would seize the living fish in his native element must 
needs move with a rapidity and a sinuous grace, to 
which the most splendid efforts of a human athlete 
are very, very slow and clumsy indeed. But like most 
of the seals, and for probably the same hidden digestive 
‘reasons, the Penguin thinks well to burden his belly 
with boulders. Sir James Ross notes that in the sto- 
mach of one of them he found ten pounds weight of 
quartz, granite, and trap. Well, the poor thing needs, 
no doubt at too frequently recurring times, something 
to impart a sense of fulness and stability to the 
stomach. For that organ is not only of huge size 
in proportion to the build of the bird, but has, in com- 

mon with the seals and sharks, ay, the majority of 
' the Deep-Sea People, a flood of digestive juices capable 
of dealing almost (as a sailor would say) with scupper 
nails. 
26 


402 Boobies and Penguins 


_ Of the domestic virtues and daily shore life of 
Peace) I dare not speak, as I have no perso na 
knowledge, and my imagination recoils at the idea o 
cultivating the Lares and Penates ee. srna 
o> enact shores of Antarction.: «| rae: arte Boysab 
H5R octes of eanis SII Jute toc ab Se ae 
Bole? bir Pt i “itt aie Es, bit ailoet 
eiiteaxs- ak Sion Jk dissed teats von Yaa 


hae 
we 
uy 
=~ 
~~ 


r,: 5 x 
sé ict wy m5 «if uf aif 15{—~ beans A | 451 Fy; 1, < 
SOUL RY ALO aa tfocmeul} CITT Fee. ieee 
iy Sh Sent nt) ta jad} bbs Pines bf Pee ite 


iy ot mot ‘esticr idk & tooda aie 
silo aovuybai Yar Vile} Hw eqns nee 
ries slo sioner “cit SAO nie 
ayo Kee ay 
Hive toa sernbo IO a nibedsta Si do 4 rot aE: 4 
1s Ton AS eae i ot ote olotiet -Seom  duickae 
oie 982 tts ohare: Gerteairia” ete snitlep » 
feotine frornse ¥y ) ith ga de akeit odd 6 
‘ pk Palme il mn Citw Svar he. - 
Ai taunt & tO emote iebioice Pasar Se con 
AMS DAS Wor Fs ang ae 
afiinil aathe ai RUT Pb Data peer iae- 
Hid aut iobicd oF How Soli nies) See 
oop ge yius tom) 2605b 2 wi] > sbied fas 
Frias Bi cay fe? DATHOR be His LS 400 ees 
boat sail) note Hd be Wi eat bite Nee 
ified emilee veipeW oot ts aie 
milidcie “Lae geet do sere | s aqme 
& aud Jo “fins tote se Titty “ei We epee 
ay ryt (Heal tay a vith bit en 1 6s donee 


CHAPTER XXVII 
THE FRIGATE BIRD 


N dealing with this, the last of my Deep-Sea People, 
I have unfortunately to cut across, I will not say 
many prevailing ideas, since the subject is not popu- 
larly known, but many quasi-scientific ideas concerning 
him, It is now many years since I read in a book 
by Michelet, the French naturalist, a long rhapsody 
on the Frigate Bird, most poetical, most beautiful 
in diction, but alas, as is so. common with French 
scientists, pure imagination from beginning to end, 
without the lightest substratum of fact. .In spite of 
my youth at the time and my innate reverence for the 
written word, especially in a scientific treatise, I 
knew that all Michelet said about the Frigate Bird 
was wrong; it would almost have been hyperbolical 
to apply it to the wandering albatross, whose powerful 
flight and endurance excel those of the Frigate, or 
Man-of-War Bird, as much as those of the latter do 
the powers of the sparrow. | 
But the pity of it is that, as in so many other 
cases, Michelet’s absurdities have been perpetuated 
in our own natural histories with that serene faith 
in a writer’s integrity manifested by Reingelder in 
Yates’s book, as described by Kipling in his wonderful 


story-of the German flag. Although warned by his 


friend repeatedly, and his attention drawn to the 
viperine head of the snake he held in his hand, Rein- 


403 


404 The Frigate Bird 


gelder, secure in his knowledge of what Yates had — 
written of those snakes, and calm in his faith in the _ 
great authority, proceeds to examine the snake alive. _ 
He is bitten and dies, but with his latest breath he 


moans: ‘ Yates haf lied in brint.?. Very sad, but quite 


understandable. A new series of books will presently 
deal with facts of natural history, wherein shall not 
appear one single statement based upon the wild 


romancings of the ancient naturalists, but all verified q 


by personal observation, with the names of the authors 
given for easy reference. 


Not that, except in the interests of truth, it matters 


very much whether one speaks of the Man-of-War 


Bird as subsisting on the wing through life and floating =| 
calmly over hundreds of leagues of ocean remote from 


land, or whether he be compared with the condor ~ 
of the Andes for power of vision and spread of wing, 
or any other tale that might occur to so essentially 


fanciful a raconteur as the romantic Michelet. Only q 4 


if we are to have facts, let them be facts; if fiction, 


let us understand and enjoy it as such. The Frigate ‘a 
Bird is wonderful enough to excite all our admiration, — 


without one scrap of fiction being tacked on to him, 
elegant and withal rapacious enough to be called 
the eagle of the sea, although his size is so small that 
hawk would be the better synonym. In common — 
with multitudes of other sailors, I have had many — 
ample opportunities of being quite familiar with 
the Frigate Bird, and in what I have to say about 
him I shall only state that which I know from personal 
observation. _ 
I first knew the Frigate Bird in the West Indies, 
afterwards about Ascension, and after that again — 
all over the Gulf of Mexico and around its sandy 


bays. And as I read Michelet’s effusion after I had a q 


Entirely Predatory § 405 


become well acquainted with the bird, I was the more 
eager to substantiate my first observations, and by 
enquiry among seamen, to get reliable information 
from others. 

First of all, as to the oceanic range of the Frigate 
Bird. Three natural history books lie before me, 
all ostensibly based upon authentic information. 
One speaks of the Frigate Bird soaring over hundreds 
of leagues of ocean, another of its being seen four 
hundred leagues from land, and the third, of its calmly 
resting on the wing one hundred leagues from land. 
I have never seen a Frigate Bird more than fifty 
miles from shore, nor ever heard of one being seen one 
hundred miles from land. The latter, I am sure, 
is about their limit, and for the best of all reasons. 

‘The Frigate Bird is essentially a pirate, a robber, 
who preys upon the earnings of honest birds. I do 
not mean to say that he cannot fish at all for himself, 
because I have seen him swoop down upon a flying-fish 
in the air as a hawk does upon a small bird and carry 
it off exultantly. But long, close watching has 
convinced me that alone among all the sea-birds, the 
Frigate Bird is unable to catch a fish under water 
or feed upon the water. That they can swim, their 
webbed feet will prove, although the webs are quite 
rudimentary ; but I never saw one swimming, nor 
saw one so much as touch the water. 

And in this there is to my mind something very 
mysterious and wonderful. It seems to me that 
these birds are really to the sea what hawks are to 
the land, and this supposition is supported by the 
testimony of a gentleman who has studied them 
very closely, Mr. Palmer, the gentleman who made 
the Hon. Walter Rothschild’s wonderful collection 
of sea-birds and their eggs. He records that at 


400 The Frigate Bird 


Laysan he many times noticed the Frigate Birds : 4 
snatch a young one froma nest and eat it. Sometimes, — 
he says, the parent bird would give chase, but the — 


matter always ended by one or other of them eating 


the young bird. They would even take young birds 
out of the nest that were almost fully fledged. Now 
this is a truly diabolic characteristic, not shared by 
--any other sea-bird, and hardly to be surpassed by the 
all-embracing. voracity and ferocity of the vulture. 
There can, I think, be but little doubt that the Frigate 
Bird is a close relation of the pelican, but his habits 
certainly entitle him to be called the vulture « 
the sea. 

But it is high time that I attempted a description 


of the Frigate Bird, seeing that, although of so romantic i 


and extraordinary a character, he is little known to _ 
the great majority of readers. The body of the Frigate _ 
Bird then is, when full grown, about as large as that — 
of a raven, but more elegantly shaped, of course, for 
its great power of flight. Its colour is rusty, not 
glossy, black, in none have I ever seen a white feather. 


Moreover, for some reason Ido not pretend to fathom, — q 


it does not keep its plumage in good order, the feathers 
never lying neat and sleeked; as in other sea-birds. 

Considering the size of its body, the wings of the 
Frigate Bird may truly be called enormous, but to 
speak of them as one naturalist of eminence does, 
as being fourteen feet from tip to tip is just a wild 
piece of exaggeration. I have measured a great 


many, but never found one that exceeded six feet in S| 


the breadth of its pinions, and it would indeed be an 
extraordinary specimen that attained toa wing-spread 
of eight feet. Even those I measured had the ends 
of their wings extending when folded more than half- 
way down the very long tail and overlapping one 


“A Living Balloon 407 


another in a particularly awkward-looking way, as 
if they were only meant to be kept expanded. The 
tail is a little longer than the body, and composed 
of a few strong feathers, which the bird, when on the 
wing, manipulates in a striking way. When hovering 
high in air with wings wide-spread and motionless, 
the tail is seen to divide in the middle, the two halves 
separating widely and closing again to a point, exactly 
as the blades of a pair of scissors do. In fact, if I had 
been going to give this bird a trivial name based upon 
his most noticeable characteristic, I think I should 
have called him the ‘scissor-bird.? The purpose 
served by this peculiar movement of the tail is, I 
think, obvious enough; it is for steering purposes, 
while the wings remain immobile. 

The beak, as usual with raptorial birds, is long, 
powerful; and hooked at the end. In colour it is a 
dirty white, and the edges of both mandibles are 
exceedingly sharp. Underneath the beak is a most 
curious appendage of the colour of blood, glaring 
against the dark background of the body. At first 
sight it appears as if, like the pelican, the Frigate 
Bird possessed a pouch for the holding of food, except 
that the Frigate Bird’s pouch does not commence 
on the lower mandible or half’ of the beak, but just 
below where the beak joins the head, on the neck. 
Generally it is invisible, but while the bird is soaring 
a watcher will see the crimson netlike bag suddenly 
become inflated, until it looks almost portentous in 
its size as compared with that of the bird. There 
can be no doubt whatever that it'is part of the creature’s 
provision for remaining in the air so still as it does 
at great heights, just a bladder capable at the will of 
its possessor of being filled with air.. And yet I cannot 
help thinking that there is some flaw in this argument, 


oi 


408 ‘The Frigate Bird 


because I feel sure that some Frigate Birds do not carry 
one of these bladders. In watching numbers of them _ 
I have noticed that some had it, and some had not; 
but whether those without it were FOUDE ones or hens 
Iam unable to say. » reed 
Their legs are Short and feeble, and ilthough the feet 
are webbed the webs are only about half way down the 
toes. So that they are obviously meant to live practi- 
cally on the wing. All naturalists agree that they 


are never seen swimming, certainly I have never seen 


one doing so, and as for walking on land it is almost 
an impossibility with them. They are said to roost 


upon the branches of trees, a most unusual thing for - 4 


sea-birds to do, and I will not deny the possibility 
of this. But whenever I have seen them ashore, 
they have roosted and laid their eggs and incubated 
among rugged rocks, where, by the aid of their wings, 
they could flutter heavily from one irregularity to 
another. A flat surface to walk upon is useless to 
them. Their method of feeding again is peculiarly 
hawk-like and different from that of all other sea-birds. 

So great an authority and careful an observer as 
Charles Darwin, while not stating explicitly that the 
Frigate Bird snatches its food from the sea-surface, 
says that if the offal, etc.; which they desire sinks 
more than six or eight inches below the surface it is lost 
to them, as they cannot dive like any other sea-fowl. 
He also notes, as I have done myself, that such is 
their power of manceuyring upon the wing that they 
can, and do, snatch the just hatched turtles on their 
toddling way down the beach to the sea from the pit 
where they were born. To watch a Frigate Bird 
poised, say, a thousand’ feet above the sea almost 
motionless, except for the slow turning of the head 
from side to side, and the wide-eyed glance of the 


The Grace of Rapine 409 


eye beneath, suddenly descend in a series of graceful 
curves and snatch the hapless flying-fish as he rises 
from the sea, is to realise how wonderful are the powers 
given to these birds. It is an object-lesson in perfectly 
graceful motion, even the snatch which secures the 
finny fugitive being made with such swift alertness 
that the eye cannot follow it, and the beholder imagines 
that the bird has missed its prey. Rising into the 
air again the fish is often dropped, probably because 
it was not in a good position for swallowing, and with 
one glorious swoop, made with apparent deliberateness, 
but really with tremendous swiftness, the falling fish 
has been caught again in the right position, and as the 
bird soars once more, the observer may see. it being 
slowly degusted. 

_ But, as I have been obliged to hint before, the 
main business of life for the Frigate Bird seems to 
be that of a robber. When the motherly boobies 
leave their young and fussily flap out to the fishing 
grounds, they do not see that floating, like black 
specks in the blue above, the Frigate Bird is waiting 
for their appearance. I use the singular, because 
the Frigate Bird is most unsociable. He is often 
geen in company with others of his own kind, that 
is in the sense of propinquity, but there is no sort 
of co-operation or apparent desire of association one 
with another. Every pirate singles out his victim, 
watches with keenest interest from his serene height 
the labouring search, imperceptibly descending to 
a lower plane until when at last the hard-working 
mother, having secured the fish, starts for home, 
there is a swift descent as of a black shadow, full of 
ease, apparently effortless, yet restrained. It is no 
more like the headlong plunge of the gannet than a 
man running is like a bird flying. 


410 | The Frigate Bird 


Poor booby becomes conscious of the presence of — 
her aggressor, as hasteless, fateful, he nears her; labours — ; 
hardly, frantically to escape, screams mournfully 4 
and dodges. As well try to dodge a lightning dag | q 
The pirate is in no hurry, secure of his prey he draws — 
nearer, nearer, until with a wild scream of rage and ‘ 
terror booby drops her fish and hurries to sea again 
for more. On the instant, the wide wings, only — 
partially extended before, expand to their full spread, — 
there is a tremendous curve through the air, and the _ 
falling fish is caught with ease and certainty, although _ 
sometimes only just as it is touching the water, and _ 
the graceful thief mounts again to his aerial ti of a 
vantage. 4 

The pathos of the whole thing seems to | me that = & 
it is invariably the hen boobies who are robbed; the 
male birds devouring their fish as soon as they secure 
it. But the mother needs her catch for the unfledged _ 
youngsters at home, and is consequently precluded 
from swallowing by the power of her maternal instinct. _ 
With such power of wing and ability to swoop upon ~ 
their prey it does seem a pity that the Frigate Birds 
cannot confine themselves to the work of catching | 
their own fish first hand. But then man is always of 
opinion that he is wiser and more merciful than God, 
Who hath done all things well. It isanother.instance 
of human arrogan¢e, which indeed cannot be trusted 
to interfere in any of Nature’s work without doing 
harm that he cannot again undo. [af Ge 

_ One pectiliarity attaches to the Frigate Bird which 
Tvfound very pleasant. On the occasion of which I 
spoke in the chapter on boobies, when the men made 
a raid upon the boobies’ nests (if their little hollows = 
in the sand could be thus designated), I, having no 
boots, was compelled to stand aside or suffer grievous 


THE FRIGATE BIRD AT WORK. 


[Zo face p. 410, 


A Desert Home 411 


harm to my feet from the powerful beaks of the birds, 
which they drove right and left like lance-heads at 
the legs and feet of their aggressors; and those of 
the eggs which were not addled or nearly hatched 
were not, I must say, at all pleasant eating, especially 
for me, for whom a duck’s egg is too strong.. So my 
part was to carry the eggs into camp, but finding 
out what they were like, I determined to absent myself 
from the booby-egg-hunt next morning, and have an 
expedition by myself. r 

Now the opposite side of the island upon which 
we were was of a totally different character to the 
side where we camped. The island was. divided 
almost in half, our side being flat, sandy, and in many 
places sparsely covered with a straggling sort of bind- 
weed. The other side was composed of huge masses 
of jagged rock hurled together in fantastic confusion, 
as if they had been shot out of a chariot of the gods. 
Over these tumbled masses I climbed with considerable 
pain to my feet, which only the intense curiosity I 
felt could allay, until suddenly I came upon a series 
of hollows, in each of which were two large eggs, large, 
that is, as a good-sized turkey’s egg and much the 
same in appearance. I was delighted, and immediately 
very busy collecting these treasures until I had as 
many as I could carry back in my cap. In the course 
of my researches I saw many hen birds sitting on 
their eggs, and while I took careful note of them, 
watched them in fact with an almost painful intent- 
ness, I am glad to say I never disturbed one of them. 

May I say in passing that I hope my readers will 
appreciate the almost painful delight that all this 
was to me? I had never known anything before. this 
but the sedate quiet of a London suburb, sheltered 
from all outside influences in my aunt’s quiet home, 


412 The Frigate Bird 


and afterwards the strange nomadic existence of the 
London streets, and here I was in fairyland. Ah, 
there was nothing of the il admirari about me. Only 
one thing was wanting, the coping-stone of all real 
enjoyment, some one to share it with me. But in 
this imperfect world the ideal is always just beyond 
our reach, and my already great happiness was es 
just that much incomplete. 

Another thing I noticed; the pathos of whicks 4 com- 
pletely reversed the severe judgment I had already 
passed upon these birds for what I considered their 
really infamous behaviour towards the poor boobies, 
the mournful closing-in of their lives. And:as I have 
never since seen any sea-birds under the same con- 
ditions, the extreme characteristic impression still 
remains with me, not to be obliterated or even altered 
in any way. On many of the rock points around sat 
Frigate Birds, whose active life was over. Some grim 
disability had seized them, rendering them. unable 
any longer to soar on high in proud superiority, 
monarchs of the tropical skies over the sea. There 
was for them no help, none of their kind came to feed 
them or sympathise with them, just contemptuous 
neglect was accorded to them. They could not be 
said to have any enemies; yes, perhaps one, the 
wonderful tenacity with which life clung to them. | 

Oh, the pity of it ; after such a life as theirs to sit 
through the bright day and the sweet night doomed 
irrevocably to die, but unable to reach that blessed 
change except through the long agony of waiting! 
Their feathers hung limply down, their useless wings 
trailed, the joints gleaming whitely through. Those 
once piercing eyes were glazed; the proud heads 
drooped, and only the slightest motion, a sort of 
shudder, showed that they were conscious of my 


A Welcome Contribution 413 


presence and unable to resent or avoid it. And all 
around them were the bones of those of their com- 
rades who had in like manner sat and waited for death, 
as if to assure them that although the way was long 
the goal was sure. An added pathos came from the 
fact that coming and going birds paid not the slightest 
attention to these silent candidates for sympathy, 
much less help. But neither would they assault 
the helpless ones, and thus open the door of relief 
to them. As I stood and gazed I felt the tears stream- 
ing down, for, young as I was, the spectacle was 
sufficiently sad to compel all my sympathy. But 
it never occurred to me that I could do anything. 

Very sadly I gathered up my eggs and took my 
way back, my spirits rising as the distance between 
me and the dying ones increased, until, when I reached 
the camp and produced my find, I was quite ready 
to be puffed up with a sense of my own great im- 
portance to the community. It was nearly breakfast- 
time, and my contribution was immediately put in 
hand for cooking. They were boiled, those eggs, 
and the first man to taste one shouted joyfully: 
* Why, they’re better than chickens’ eggs.’ I cordially 
endorsed his statement. They were really delicious ; 
and what is more, there was not an addled one among 
them, which I attribute to the fact that I had not 
disturbed any of the parent birds from their sitting. 
The whole of them were eaten for breakfast, and 
afterwards, since there were no immediate duties to 
perform, all hands started for this new treasure field, 
greedily intent upon rifling it completely, not at all 
because we were in need of food, our store being very 
abundant, but—well, because I suppose man is natur- 
ally greedy. | 

But this raid was, in a little expected sense, 


414 ‘The Frigate Bird 


entirely beneficent. For when the men reached the 
rocks and saw the monumental poses of the dying 
birds, they, forgetting for the moment the quest for 


eggs, rushed upon them with sticks, and slew until 


the last of the sufferers had been set free. It was 
done in a very brutal and thoughtless way, but the 
result was entirely good. Still, I felt glad even then. 
I had no hand in it. so perfectly unmerciful may some 
of our most merciful restraints be. : 

A great gathering of eggs was made, so great that 
the whole of the laying ground was completely cleared 
of them, and also, with a wantonness for which I 
cannot find sufficient condemnation, the eggs upon 
which the mothers were sitting were also taken, 
none of them fit for food. So we had a grand feast — 
of eggs for two or three days, after which we had to 
go without, for we could not go back to the rank 
eggs of the booby with the fresh, sweet taste of the 
Frigate Birds’ eggs in our mouths, And then the men 
lamented, as usual too late, their extravagance. I 
noticed, however, that every day one or two of the 
men would go over to the rocks and have a busy 
search for a stray egg or so. Seamen are, of course; 
passionately fond of fresh eggs and vegetables, because 
they come their way so seldom. So that their voracity 
may perhaps be excused. 

I am loth to leave the Frigate Bird, because he 
is the last of the Deep-Sea People with which I have 
to deal. And yet, somehow, I do not feel able to 
treat of his life in an idyllic fashion, Having stated 
what I know about him, I fear. I have left myself 
little room or reason so to do, He seems to be entirely 
free from all those pretty traits characteristic of most 
other sea-birds. So destitute of natural affection 
are they, even for their young, that it is no uncommon 


A Comic Interlude 415 


thing, I am told, for the hen and cock to fight furiously 
over the body of the poor fledgeling until it is torn 
to pieces, which pieces they devour with the greatest 
avidity. Now there are sea-birds as well as land-birds 
which will eat each others’ eggs, but no sea-bird 
except the Frigate Bird will ever devour the young of 
even other birds, much less its own. It is a horrible 
practice, but one, I suppose, that has become common, 
owing to the birds’ curious limitations in the way of 
food-getting. 7 

I may just say in passing that one of the most 
comical natural history scenes I ever witnessed was 
enacted among these rocks, under my very nose 
almost. A bird was sitting, and for some reason 
I did not understand, kept looking anxiously first 
at me and then down by its side at a crevice in the 
rocks. I stepped a pace or two nearer to see what 
might be the matter, when the bird, apparently unable 
to endure my presence any longer, soared away, 
exposing two eggs. Immediately there appeared 
over the edge of the hollow in which the eggs lay the 
points of a row of claws, and a large crab hoisted itself 
hurriedly by means of them. It at once embraced 
one of the eggs, and turning to carry it off, tried to 
trundle the other one after it by covering the eggs 
with two of its feet. I had no stick, and a wholesome 
dread of the nippers of a crab like that, so I stayed 
where I was and watched the poacher’s antics. They 
were irresistibly funny. He tried to look at me and 
where he was going at the same time; he wanted 
both of those eggs, and they hampered his movements. 
While he was cuddling the front egg, he tried to keep 
the other big claw ready for attack or defence, as the 
case presented itself; and on top of all his other 
troubles I could see that he expected the proprietress 


416. ‘The Frigate Bird 
of them would be back again directly, and that she q 


was much more to be feared than the featherless — 


biped that was watching him. The upshot of it — 
all was that he fell off the edge of the rock, a distance _ 
of about four feet, on to'a small boulder. There was 
quite a smash, for when I looked after him I saw that _ 
both eggs were split, some of his claws were damaged, _ 
and there was a crack across his carapace that looked 


as if he would need a new one at once. But the tumble qi 


did not seem to worry him. He was making the 


best of the time at his disposal loading his reservoir 


with the contents of the eggs, while I watched him, _ 
laughing more heartily than I had done for along time, _ 


I know that the recital of his adventures has little _ 


humour about it, but his antics were as comical as — : 
those of any clown. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 
SEAWEED 


A ND now, having come to the close of my pleasant 
“\ task, I would like to take the liberty of saying a 

_ few words upon a subject which, while not strictly 
within the compass of my subject, is so closely allied to 
it that I hope I shall be forgiven for alluding to it. It 
is about Seaweed. I cannot pretend to have made the 


“growths of the sea a matter of study, although I am 


well aware how fascinating the subject is; but I have 
noticed very closely how important Seaweed is to fish, 
and especially the fish of the Deep Sea. Not asa matter 


of food, of course. With the exception of the manatees 


and possibly the turtle, as far as I am aware, none 
of the Deep-Sea People eat Seaweed, but use it for 
purposes of shelter and breeding. 

The most important of all, as well as, I think, 
the most wonderful, is the beautiful sea-growth known 
to sailors as Gulfweed or Sargasso Weed, and to 
oceanologists as Fucus natans, because it floats and 
grows, needing no settled abiding place or root-hold. 
It is confined to the North Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, 
and is found in greatest quantities in the vast eddy 


- formed on the eastern side of that ocean between the 


Gulf Stream and the Equatorial Current. A whole 
series of romances might be built upon this wonderful 
weed-covered portion of the ocean. One or two have 
been based on the supposition that the enormous 


417 27 


418 Seaweed 


masses of closely knit weed are impenetrable by ships, — 
and that by some curious centripetal force the majority _ 
of derelicts in the North Atlantic, unless destroyed, — 
find their way into its solitudes sooner or later. g 

I do not believe that it is anywhere packed suffi- — 
ciently closely to prevent a sailing ship getting through — 
it, given sufficient wind. But then that part of the © 
North Atlantic is subject to many calms and light — 
airs, and there is seldom a breeze of sufficient strength — 
blowing over it to enable a sailing ship to force her way — 
through. I have several times sailed through parts — 
of the region where the sea looked more like some — 
vast ripe cornfield than anything else, and no matter _ 
what wind we had there were no waves, they simply — 
could not rise because of the weed. Steamers of course — 
give it a very wide berth, since the great masses of — 
weed hampers a propeller dreadfully, and that too — 
when so much more power than usual is needed to — 
force the ship through. a 

The Gulfweed is, I think, the most beautiful Of am 
all Seaweeds. It is of a light golden hue, with delicate 
leaves and berries, both of the same colour, and bearing 
no resemblance in shape to the ribbon-like wrack — 
of the coast. It certainly looks tempting enough to — 
eat, and it may be also that, unknown to us, some 
of the sea creatures do eat it. But that is certainly — 
not its primary use. In it myriads of the deep-sea 
fish breed, its close-knit fronds affording shelter to — 
the young fry when hatched such as they could gain — 3 
nowhere else in the sea. Not only shelter, but food — 
perfectly suited to their immature needs. It simply r 
swarms with life, and a bucket full of weed hauled q 
up almost anywhere would yield a splendid population a 
for a deep-sea aquarium. . 

It is the home too of myriads of crabs, which i 


Submarine Forests 419 


do not think ever grow to any size. I certainly do 
- not suggest that the edible crab of our coasts breeds 
_ there, and makes the long journey through mid- 
ocean to get to where he may become of use to man. 
Especially, as the crab cannot swim through the water 
horizontally like other crustacea, he must have a place 
of some stability to walk upon, whether it be the 
bottom of the sea, or a frond of weed, or the planks 
of a derelict. No, I feel sure that the small crabs of 
the Gulfweed are a small species, and do not grow 
larger than, say, three inches across the carapace. 
It is the breeding place of the marvellous flying-fish, 
whose ova closely simulate its berries. It also affords 
a spawning ground for those fish such as the dolphin, 
which are the flying-fishes’ fiercest enemies. 

But as most of this has already been said in the 
course of preceding chapters I will pass on, albeit 
reluctantly, from the wonderful floating weed of the 
North Atlantic to the gigantic ‘ Kelp,’ as sailors 
insist upon calling it, of the South Seas. Round 
many of those isolated mountain peaks rising from the 
lonely ocean plateaux two or three thousand fathoms 
beneath, piercing the troubled surface of the almost 
equally lonely sea, and towering another thousand 
fathoms into the air there grows an extraordinary 
plant. Its leaves grow to a length of six feet and 
a width of a foot, being in colour and consistency 
like wet leather. Their stems, as thick as a stout 
man’s arm, grow to lengths unknown, but certainly 
over a hundred feet, grow up from the rocks beneath 
until they reach the surface, a veritable submarine 


. forest whose limits are sharply defined by the 


depths from which the plant can reach the water- 
surface. 
All areund an island such a forest will grow to a 


420 Seaweed 


distance off shore proportionate to the steepness of : 
the descent of the island’s base. Within its limits — 
no sea can rise. The fiercest waves that ever roll | 
make no impression upon this natural breakwater, — 
whose piles are so flexible that one may tie them in 
a knot, and so slender that they may be encircled by ] 
a hand clasp. Through the dim recesses of this won- — 
derful forest the fish wander at their ease and in perfect — 
shelter from whatever it is that fish, surface fish that 
is, dislike in a storm. In among its foliage they find — 
infinite stores of food, yet in its deepest confines there — 
is safe shelter for the young fry that would otherwise 
soon be annihilated. And for the navigator it often — 
marks outlying rock points that would otherwise — 
be passed unobserved, although it certainly prevents — a 
the sea breaking over them in a gale. 7 

Occasionally immense masses of it are torn by the © 
violence of the waves from the root-holds on the out- 
lying fringe of the forest and take a long, long journey — 
by the aid of the sea and current, carrying with them — 
a microcosm of fish life to breed and multiply in some 
far-distant land from their original habitat. Which 
may account for the prevalence of precisely the same 
fish in places so very widely separated. Take it 4 
altogether, it is a curious plant, drawing no sustenance — 
through its roots, but merely anchoring in obedience — 
to some strange plant instinct for fear of being washed — 4 
away, and subsisting entirely upon what it draws — 
direct from the limpid but bitterly salt waters of 
the sea. a 

And lastly, not because of the exhaustion of the ‘ 
subject, but because I can only deal with deep-sea 
weed; that wonderfully rapid growing weed which © a 
appears as it were spontaneously in any part of he q 
ocean where there is a solid substance to which it can 


The Slimy Sea Grass 421 


' attach itself. Kipling alludes to it in his fine poem 
: of the Derelict :— 


-* South where the corals breed, 
The footless floating weed 
Folds me and fouls me, strake on strake upcrawling.’ 


Its spores must be universally diffused all over the 
millions of square miles of ocean. For only let a 
congenial surface be exposed to the action of the sea, 
such as a wooden plank or a bare piece of iron (it 
does not love the poisonous paint which is put on 
the bottom of steel ships or yellow metal sheathing), 
and in an incredibly short space of time the weed 
will cover it with a bright green slimy veil which, 
being scraped off and dried, looks like the very finest 
grass. So rapidly does it grow that in wet ships, 
as we call them, that is, vessels over whose decks the 
sea is almost continually washing in heavy weather, 
it is absolutely necessary to give the decks a good 
hard scrubbing every two or three days to clear off 
this weed growth, which is so extremely slippery as 
to make it dangerous to walk about the decks. 

It is a very curious sight to see a ship, a sailing 
ship that is, that has been out a long while rolling 
lazily in a calm with the long dank tresses of the weed 
on her sides lying closely to her as she lifts, and floating 
out all around her as if alarmed when she plunges. 
_ But it looks exceedingly mournful upon a derelict, 
which naturally gathers more upon it than a vessel 
which is being handled, since it is obvious that the 
quieter its host the more rapid its rate of growth. 
It will there be found growing thickly all over her, 
even in the cabins if the sea has easy access, and as 
she wallows helplessly it spreads like a gloomy halo 
worn by the genius of despair. Only upon closer 


422 ~~ Seaweed 


inspection it is seen to be somewhat enlivened by the - 
presence of a multitude of living creatures, mostly _ 
crustacea or the spat of limpets and barnacles; and — 
one feels that, instead of being in the presence of © 
death, he is in the midst of abundant joyful life. % 

My pleasant task is over, and for all apology for — 
its many shortcomings I can only say that I have done — 
my best to put facts before the reader without being — 
tedious, so that if the instruction was slender the — 
interest might not flag. I need scarcely say that by — 
the aid of text books it would have been quite easy — 
to expand each one of these chapters into a book ~ 
as long as the whole of them. But that, I take it, — 
would have been to defeat the object for which I — 
was commissioned to write these papers, and whichI _ 
tried to foreshadow in the brief introduction to them. _ 
If what has been here set down has in some degree _ 
increased the reader’s interest in and reverence for 
the work of God in places far from his every-day ken 
and made him feel that it is worth while to cultivate 
a wide and sympathetic outlook upon His Marois . 3 
shall be abundantly repaid. oa 


THE END 


CSRS? Sara 


INDEX 


AGULHAS BANKS, the, 64 
cod at, 285 
Albacore, the, 182-203 
description of, 182 
food of, 183 
size of, 184 
fishing for, 185, 201% 
range of, 187 
life-story of, 187-203 
egg-laying, 202 
Albatross, 331-349 
description of, 333 
food of, 334 
range of, 336 
breeding of, 337 
varieties of, 338 
life-story of, 341-349 
Alepisaurus ferox 
description of, 156 
range of, 157 
fragility of, 158 
Alligator guard, 98, [10 
Alopecias vulpes 
the foe of right whales, 45 
Anchovy, 307 
Antarctic Circle, the, 49 
Auckland Island, 84 
Auks, 397 
Autobiography of a 
whale, 13-38 


sperm 


BACALLAO, 283 

Balaena australis, 48-50 

Balaenoptera sibbaldit sulphur- 
cous, 64 

Baleen, 46 

Bank cod fishery, 281 


Barbadoes, albacore at, 185 
flying-fish fishery at, 230-233 
Barnacles, 253 
Barracouta, 310-328 
description of, 311 
anecdotes of, 312 
fishing for, 313-328 
rapacity of, 321 
life of, 323 
differences in, 324 
varieties of, 324 
Barrier Reef, the, 52 
Bartholinus, 137 
Basilaurus, 169 
Basking Shark, 97 
Bean, Mr., 111, 310, 325 
Becke, Louis, 110 
Beluga, the, 66, 67, 70 
Benthodesmus Atlanticus, 159 
Beukelaer, William, 295 
Bergen, receipt at, 81 
Billingsgate, fish at, 278 
Black Fish, 67, 71 
Bonito, the, 204, 220 
description, 204 
fishing for, 205, 209 
size of, 207 
range of, 207, 210 
warm-blooded, 214 
parasites of, 215 
as food, 217 
Boobies, 386-395 
description of, 387 
stupidity of, 388 
anecdotes of, 388 
hunting for, 389 
foes of, 393 


424 


Bottle-nose Whale, 66 
Bowhead Whale, 39-50 
Brama, 272 

Bridgetown, flying-fish at, 230 
‘ Britannia,’ 286 

Burbot, 290 

Burn-Murdoch, cry of, 95 

By Reef and Palm, 110 


* CACHALOT,’ 318 

Campbell Island, 84 

Cape Hens, 338, 340 

Cape Pigeons, 350, 359-367 

Captains Courageous, 281 

Carlisle Bay, 185 

Cavallé, 327 

Cephalopoda, 127, 132, 134-136 

Cetomimus, 155 

‘Challenger,’ the, 146, 154, 163 

Chelone imbricata, 123 

Chelonophagi, 123 

Chiasmodon niger, 153 

Chimeeras, Deep-Sea, 146-164 
Regalecus, 152 
Chiasmodon niger, 153 
Rondeletia, 155 
Cetomimus, 155 
Stimenchelys, 155 
Eurypharynx, 155 
Pelicanoides, 156 
Saccopharynx flagellum, 156 
Alepisaurus ferox, 156 
Frost-fish, 158 
Benthodesmus Atlanticus, 159 
Lopholatilus chamaeleonticeps, 


159 

Tile-fish, 15 

Mancalius Gomes 163 

Corynolophus Reinhardtii, 164 

Melanocetus Johnsonti, 164 

Liocetus Murrayt, 164 
Chinese fishermen, 123 
Clupea alba, 30 
Clupea pilchardus, 297 
‘Cockney,’ anecdote of, 226 
Cod, 274-290 

fecundity of, 275 

food of, 276, 280, 286 

fishing for, 276, 281, 282 

decrease of, 277 


Index 


Cod—(continued ) 
numbers of, 280 
cod-liver oil, 284 
varieties of, 287 
size of, 290 
Corynolophus Reinhardtit, 164 
Coryphaena, 67 
Coryphaena equisetus, 250 
Coryphaena hippurus, 250 
Crabs, 418 
Crusades, tribute to, 81 
Crustacea, tiny, 41 a 
Cuttle-fish, food for sperm — 
whales, 24 
description of, 127-14 
species of, 132 t 
Pliny on, 136 
stories of, 137-140 
fecundity of, 141 
their scent of musk, 142 
mode of reproduction, 143 


Dactylopterus orientalis, 236 
Dactylopterus volitans, 236 
Dedalus, the,176 # ‘a 
a Charles, on frigate bird, 
40 5 
Decapods, description of, 132 
range of, 133 
food of, 134 
Delphinidae, 66 
species of, 67 
foes of, 69 
cannibalism of, 69 
Derelict, quoted, 421 
Dog Fish, 113 
Dolphins, the, 66, 238-255 
species of, 67 
fins of, 69 
cannibalism, 69 
description of, 238 
colours of, 239 
scales of, 240 
medial line, 240 
fins of, 240 
shape of, 241 
breeding-places, 241 
range of, 242 
fishing for, 244, 248, 254 
cannibalism of, 246 


Index 


Dolphins—(continued 
numbers of, 247 
food of, 248 
flesh of, 249 
Species of, 250 
life of, 252 
as food, 255 
Drevar, Captain, on sea-serpents, 
173 
Dugong, 73, 74 


Echinets remora, 273 

Edinburgh to the Antarctic, 95 

Elephant Seal. See Sea Ele- 
phant. 

Emysaura serpentina, 121 

Engraulis, 307 

Eskimo, hunters of walrus, 81 

Eudyptila minor, 398 

Eurypharynx, 155 

Exocetae, 185 

Exocetus nigricans, 228 

Lxocetus volitans, 222 


FERNANDO DO NoRoNHA, 99 
Finback Whale, the, visit of, 60 
Fishes, deep-sea, 146-164 
Fishing, a grand day’s, 326 
Flat-fishes, 325 
Flat-head, the, 144 
Floating island, a, 213 
Flounders, 326 
Flying-fish, 221-237 
powers of, 221 
£. volitans, 222 
description of, 223 
velocity of, 225 
bladders of, 226 
spawning place of, 227 
fecundity of, 228 
E. nigricans, 228 
fishing for, 229-233 
range of, 234 
numbers of, 234 
French whalers, 48 
Fresh-water Herring, 308 
Frigate Bird, 403-416 
range of, 405 
character of, 405, 409 
description of, 406 


425 


Frigate Bird—(continued) 
eggs of, 411 
old birds, 412 
a comic scene, 415 
Frost-fish, 158 
Fucus natans, 417 
Fulmar Petrel, 335, 373 


Gadidae, 274 

Gar-fish, 261 

Giant Petrel, 335 

Giant Skate, 98, 110 

Globicephalus, 71 

Gloucester, Mass., fishermen of, 
282 

Goode, Mr., 111, 159, 179, 310, 
325 

Gosse, Mr., 173 

Grampus, the, 67 

Great Auk, 397 

Greenland Whale. See Right 
Whale 

Greenlander’s tribute of walrus 
tusks, 81 

Grenadines, the, 117 

Grien, M., 168 

Groper, 327 

Gulfweed, 417, 418 

Giinther, Dr., on sharks, 109 
on deep-sea fishes, 146 
on oar-fish, 352 
on herring, 291 

Gurnard, red, 235 

Gurnard, sapphirine, 235 

Gymnopus, 121 


HADDOCK, 275, 278 
Hake, 275 
Halibut, 325 
Halicore, 73 

food of, 74 
Harbinger, the, 112 
Harp Seal, 90 
Hartwig, Dr., on cod, 274 
on albatross, 335 
—— on penguins, 399 
Hawk’s-bill Turtle, 123 
‘Helen McGregor,’ 316 
Herring, 291-309 

trade in, 292-294, 296 


426 Index 

Herring—(continued) Loligo, 132 bos ae 
range of, 294 ‘ London,’ 262 “ 
curing of, 295 Lopholatilus chamaeleonticeps, — 
varieties of, 297-309 159 a 
fishing for, 303 L’Orient, 306 a 

Hobson’s Bay, 144 Loyalty Islands, 353 


Holland, fisheries in, 296 
Holothuria, 123 
Home, Mr. E., on fossil fish, 180 
Hugo, Victor, 127 
Humboldt’s Penguin, 399 
Humpback Whale, life of, 45, 
51-58 
arms of, 52 
foes of, 52 
food of, 53 
attacked by man, 54-56! 
play of, 56 
parasites of, 57 
blubber of, 57 
Hydrarchos Sillimanni, 172 


INACCESSIBLE Island, 34 
Infusoria, 151 


Janthina, 158 
efferies, Richard, 9 
elly-fish, 128 


KAUWHAI, 327 

Kelp, 419 

Kerguelen’s Land, 84 

Khelindromi, 187 

Killer Whale, 43 

King of the herrings, 152 

Kipling, Rudyard, 9, 73, 403, 421 

Kircher, Athanasius, 137 

Koch, Dr. A. C,, on sea-serpents, 
172 

Kotick, 73, 96 

Kraken, the, 138 


LANCE-FISH. See Sword-fish 
Large Herring, 308 

Lee, Mr., 173 

Limpets on whales, 57 

Ling, 275, 288 

Liocetus Murrayi, 164 

Lister, Dr., 172 

Lofoden Islands, 138 


Lucas, Mr., 161 
Lydekker, 310 


Mahabarata, the, 179 
Mackerel, 256-273 

sold on Sunday, 257 

dangers of, 257 

flesh of, 258 

description of, 258 

schools of, 259 

numbers of, 260 

range of, 260 

mackerel guide, 261 

action of moon upon, 263. 

use of, in America, 263 

varieties of, 263-273 

See also Albacore 
Mackerel Guide, 261 
Magnus, Olaus, on the kraken, 

137 Ter, 

on sea-serpents, 170. 
Maldive Island, 265 
Mallemucks, 338 
Man-of-war Bird, 403 
Manatees, 73-76 

food of, 74 

as pets, 75 

character of, 75 
Mancalius Uranoscopus, 163 
Maories fishery for Barracouta, 


318 
McQuhae, Captain, on sea-ser- 
ent, 176 
edusae, 128, 188 
Megaptera, 167 
Meamacien Johnsontt, 164 
Melville, Herman, quoted, 139 
Menhaden, 297 
Michelet, 403, 404 
Mimulus moschatus, 142 
—— —— universality of, scent 
of, 371 
Moby Dick, quoted, 139 
Mollymauks, 338 


Index 


Monaco, Prince of, 208 
Monarch of the Deep, the, 10 
Moon, action of, upon fish, 263 
Morse, the. See Walrus. 
Mother Carey’s Chicken, 351, 
368, 375 
- Mullet, New Zealand, 327 
Musk, universality of, 371 
Musk-rat’s tail, scent of, 371 
Myrmecophagus, 77 ~ 
Mysticetus, the, 39-50 


NARBOROUGH, SIR J., 398 

Narwhals, 67, 70 

Nature, 174 

Nelson, Peter, 167 

Nets, fishing, 303 

New Zealand, salmon and trout 
taken to, 321 

Newfoundland Banks, the, 64, 
27 

ae fishery of, 285 

North Pole, the, 40 

Norwegian whalers, 62 

Nova Scotia, 279 


OAR-FISH, 152 

Ocean depths, life at, 147 

Octopoda, 128 

Octopus, the, 127-145 
description of, 128, 130 
adventure with, 128 
size of, 131 
sucking discs of, 131 

Orca, 

Orca gladiator, 43 

Orkney, fossil in, 180 

Oudemans, Professor, on sea- 
serpents, 168-171 

Owen, Professor, 
pents, 176 


on Ssea-Ser- 


Pajaro nino, 399 
Palmer, Mr., on frigate birds, 


405 
‘Pauline,’ the, 173 
Paulinus, 137 
Pelicanoides, 156 
Penguins, 395 
description of, 397, 398 


427 


si Gi oe saan ) 
life of, 39 

range of, 3 

food of, Pia 
Pennant, 373 
Pericles, quoted, 68 
Petrels, the, 368-385 
Phaeton etherius, 356-358 
Pilchard, 297 

numbers of, 298 

taste of, 296 

trade in, 299 
Pilot fish, 100-103 
Pintado Petrel, 350 
Piscau del Diablo, 58 
Plesiosaurus, 177 
Pliny, 123, 136 
Polar Bear, the, 81 
Polar Sea, the, 39 
Pollock, 275, 289 
Pomfret, 272 
Pontoppidan, Bishop, on Cepha- 

lopoda, 137 

on sea-serpents, 169 
Porpoise, the, 66, 67 

speed of, 68 

oil of, 70 
Port Chalmers, fishing for cod 

at, 287 
‘Princess Alice,’ 208 
Pristis, 98, 107 
Procellaria, 355, 375 
Procellaria pelagica, 369 
Pygmy, Penguin, 398 


Raitiae, 98, 110 
Rays, 112 
Red Gurnard, 235 
Red Sea, the, 20 
Regalecus, 152 
Reingelder, 403 
Remorae, 44, 103, 108 
used as fishers, 123 
true place of, 251 
Rhinodon typicus, 109 
Rhytina, 73 
Right Whale, 39-50 
size of, 40 
blubber of, 40 
spermaceti, 40 


428 Index 

Right Whale—(contiuued ) Sea Bear, 90 
food of, 41 Sea Cow, the, 73 
whalebone, 42 Sea Elephant, the, 83-89 
gullet of, 42 description of, 83 
schools of, 43 nose of, 83 


sluggishness of, 43 
enemies of, 43-46 
range of, 46 
numbers of, 46 
life of, 47 
southern, 48-50 
Rock Cod, 287 
Rockall Bank, the, 64 
Rocklings, 275, 287 
Rogers, Professor, on sea-ser- 
pents, 172 
Rondeletia, 155 
Rorquals, the, 59-72 
solitariness of, 60 
value of, 62 
fishing for, 62 
omnivorousness of, 64 
damage done by, 65 
species of, 66 
speed of, 68 
Ross, ct 401 
Rothschild, Hon. W., 405 
* Rotomahana,’ 167 


SABLE ISLAND, 279 
Saccopharynx flagellum, 156 
Saddle-back Seal, go 

‘St. Helena Beef,’ 253 

St. Ives, pilchard fishing at, 298 
St. Paul’s Rocks, 190 

Salmo arcticus, 280 

Salmon taken to New Zealand, 


321 
Salting fish, 208-220 
Sapphirine Gurnard, 235 
Sardine, 306 

decrease of, 306 

range of, 307 
Sargasso Sea, I9I, 227, 243 
Sargasso Weed, 417 
Sargassum bacciferum, 242 
Saw-fish, 98, 107 
Scombridae, 100-103, 128 
Sea, the temperature of, 111 

life at bottom of, 147-164 


numbers of, 83 
hunting for, 84-88 
food of, 88 
lot of, 89 
Sea Horse, See Walrus. 
Sea Hippopotamus, 83-89 
Sea Leopard, 90 
Sea Lion, 90 
Sea Slug, 123 
Sea Swallow, 123 
Sea Turtles, 121 
Sea Vitch, 77 
Seals, 90-96 
speed of, 90 
life of, gt 
abstinence of, or 
contests of, 91 
young of, 93 
range of, 94 
enemies of, 94 ot 
hunting for, 95 
intelligence of, 96 
Sea-serpent, the, 152 
various reports of, 165-181 
Seaweed, 417-422 
Seton-Thompson, Ernest, 9 
Shakespeare quoted, 68 
Shark, Thresher, the, foe of right 
whales, 45 
Sharks, 97-113 
have no bones, 97 
description of, 98 
eater of human flesh, 98 
appetite of, 99 
life-story of, 99-106 
superstitions about, 104 
fishing for, 105 
young of, 105 
species of, 106 
voracity of, 109 
range of, 111 
as food, 314 
Sicily, 184 
Silliman, Professor, 
serpents, 172 


on sea 


Index 


Simenchelys, 155 
Sirenia, 73-76 
vegetarianism of, 74 
_ Skate, 98, 112 
“a gigantic, 112 
Skip-jack, 102, 133, 217 
Sleep of animals, 363 
Smith, Mr. S., 372 
Snapper, 327 
Snoek, 318 
Solander Ground, 36, 37 
Soles, 326 ; 
South Georgia, 84 
South Island, 25 
South Shetlands, 84 
Southern Right Whale, 48-50 
Sperm Whale, autobiography of, 
13-38 
head of, 14 
school of, 14 
eyes of, 14 
parasites of, 20 
wound of, 23 
contest with cuttle-fish, 24 
growth of, 25 
warning of danger, 27 
chase of, 27 
prisoned by iceberg, 29 
food of, 30 
sexes of, 31 
battles of, 32-36 
boats destroyed by, 36 
life of, 37 
Spermaceti, 40 
Spharga coriacea, 115 
life-story of, 115-119 
Sphyroena, 310 
Sprat, the, 301 
sold as sardines, 302 
habits of, 303 
fishing for, 303 
Sgualidae, 98 
Squalus maximus, 180 
Squid. See also Decapods. 
facts about, 140 - 
Stern Pitter, 375 
Stewart Island, 128 
Stickleback, 97 
Sting Ray, 110 . 
Stinker, 373 


429 


Stork at sea, 396 
Stormy Petrel, 368 
description of, 369 
musky smell of, 370 
food of, 372 
life-story of, 376-385 
Strabo, 123 
Stronsa, fossil in, 180 
Suckers, 44, 103, 108 
Sucking-fish, 273 
Sulphur Bottom Whale, 64 
Sunday trading, 257 
Swallows at sea, 395 
Swordfish, the foe of right 
whales, 44 
description of, 263-272 
fishing for, 264 
_ powers of, 264 
life-story of, 264-272 
enemies of, 267 
contests of, 270 


TARPON, 308 
fishing for, 309 
Thalassians, 121 
Thresher Shark, the foe of right 
whales, 45 
description of the shark, 98, 
108 
Thynnus sarda, 217-220 
Thyrsttes, 310 
Thyrsitops violaceus, 325 
Tiger Shark, 98 
Tile-fish, 159-162 
Toitlers of the Sea, 127 
Tonga, 51 
Trigla cuculus, 235 
Trigla hirundo, 235 
Tropic Bird, 356-358 
Trout taken to New Zealand, 
321 
Trumpeter, 327 
Tunny. See Albacore 
Turtle, the, 114-126 
description of, 114 
range of, 114 
life-story of, 115-119 
egg-laying, 118 
young of, 119 
food of, 121 


k be 


_ Turtle—(continued) 
fecundity of, 122 
as food, 123 
hunting for, 123 
vitality of, 125 


‘UP A Waterspout,’ 166 
Vau VAU, I09 


WALRUS, THE, 77-82 
: rat a re of, 77, 79 
food of, 79 
stomach of, 79 
brain of, 80 
parental love, 80 
foes of, 81 
hunting for, 81 
_ decreasing numbers of, 81 
Weddell, Captain, 49 
West Indies, the Barracouta at, 
310 
‘ West York,’ 225 
‘Western Belle,’ story of, 359 
Westminster Gazette, 166 
Whale Birds, 351 
description of, 352 
Tange of, 355 


ike 


Whale, ‘Ar -monarch ma 
deep, 10 . 

Wink Gea ee 

e, Humpback, I 

Whale, Killer, 4 B3 bi 8 

Whale, the Right, 39-50 

Whale, Rorquals, 59-72 

bse Sperm, oneniaaae 
13-3 i 

Whale, White, 66 ; 

Whale fishery, 46-48, 54-56, 62-64 

Whalebone, 42 

White Seal, 9, 10, 73 

White Whale, 66, 67, 70 

Whitebait, 305 

Whiting, 275, 289 

Wilson, Dr. A., 173, 174 

‘Wm. V. Hutchings,’ 159 

Wyman, Professor, on sea- 
serpents, 172 

Xiphias, the foe of right whales, _ 

44, 107, 263-272 
YARMOUTH herring fishery, 294 


Yates, 403, 404 ° 
Yellow-tail, 327 ; 


Zeuglodon, 169 


Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury, 


CY ee 
‘ Bre nas 


BHBNAFEIN . _ rCO 6? YOS 


PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE 
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET 


UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY 


QL Bullen, Frank T. 

122 Creatures of the sea 
BS 

BioMed 


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