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Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924089586774 
 
DENIZENS OF THE DEEP 
 
"THE SHARK PASSED UNDER THE BROAD BILGE OF 
 THE SHIP."— Page 103. 
 
Denizens of the Deep 
 
 By 
 FRANK T. BULLEN F.R.G.S. 
 
 Author of "The Cruise of The Cachalot" etc. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
 
 CHARLES LIVINGSTON BULL 
 THEODORE CARRERAS 
 
 New York Chicago Toronto 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 London and Edinburgh 
 
Copyright, 1903-1904, by 
 FRANK T. BULLEN 
 
 Copyright, 1904, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 
 @ 5o75' 
 
 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 63 Washington Street 
 Toronto: 27 Richmond Street, W 
 London: 21 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 30 St. Alary Street 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. Introduction 9 
 
 II. The Autobiography of a Sperm Whale 13 
 
 III. The Mysticetus, or Right Whale . 39 
 
 IV. The Humpback Whale . . . .51 
 
 V. The Rorquals 59 
 
 VI. SiRENiA 73 
 
 VII. The Walrus, Morse, or Sea-Horse . 77 
 
 VIII. The Sea Elephant .... 83 
 
 IX. Seals 90 
 
 X. The Shark 97 
 
 XI. The Turtle . » . . . .114 
 
 XII. The Cuttle-Fish or Squid . . .127 
 
 XIII. Deep-Sea Chimeras .... 146 
 
 XIV. Sea-Serpents 165 
 
 XV. The Albacore 182 
 
 XVI. The Bonito 204 
 
 XVII. The Flying-Fish 221 
 
 XVIII. The Dolphin 238 
 
 XIX. The Mackerel ..... 256 
 
Contents 
 
 XX. Cod 274 
 
 XXI. The Herring 291 
 
 XXIL The Barracouta . . . .310 
 
 THE BIRDS OF THE SEA 
 
 XXIII. The Albatross 331 
 
 XXIV. Cape Pigeons and Whale Birds . , 350 
 
 XXV. The Petrels 368 
 
 XXVI. Boobies and Penguins .... 386 
 
 XXVII. The Frigate Bird . . . .404 
 
 XXVIII. Seaweed 4^7 
 
 Index 423 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 "The Shark Passed under the Broad Bilge 
 
 OF the Ship" Title 
 
 "Rose Perpendicularly with Some Palely 
 
 Glowing Mass Between His Jaws" . 18 
 
 "Deeper than I Had Ever Dreamed of, 
 Skirting the Black Bases of a Mighty 
 Mountain Range" 22 
 
 "He Writhed Round and Enwrapped Me" . 24 
 
 "A Strange White Monster" .... 28 
 
 "The Ocean Boiled with Our Efforts" . 36 
 
 "Of All Land Walking Animals None can 
 Compete with the Walrus for Clumsi- 
 ness" 78 
 
 "We Were Suddenly Startled Stiff by a 
 Most Tremendous Roaring as of a Troop 
 of Lions" 86 
 
 "As Each One Reaches the Rocks She is 
 Pounced upon by a Roaring, Frenzied 
 Mob of Males" 92 
 
 "There Are More Varieties of the Shark 
 Family than of any Other Fish Family 
 Living" 106 
 
 A Pair of Turtles Lay Basking in the Blaz- 
 ing Sunshine 114 
 
 "All the Hungry Sea People Make Respect- 
 ful Way for Her" 118 
 
List of Illustrations 
 
 FACING PAGB 
 
 "OCTOPODIA ARE TRUE SCAVENGERS, EaTING 
 
 Anything Eatable Which Comes in Their 
 Way" 130 
 
 Where Nature Has Outdone Herself in the 
 
 Fashioning of Strange Monsters . .150 
 
 The Females Settled Down upon the Smooth 
 
 Patches of Sandy Sea-Floor . . . 202 
 
 I Have Seen the Sea-Surface Suddenly 
 Broken into Foam by Myriads of Flying 
 Fish 234 
 
 Sometimes He is Taken Off His Guard and 
 
 Falls a Prey to a Shark . . .252 
 
 Garfish and Horse Mackerel Swimming Se- 
 dately in Front of the School . . 260 
 
 The Pollock is More Elegant in Shape than 
 
 THE Chief of His Tribe .... 289 
 
 "Looking Down into the Limpid Depths, I 
 Saw Several Barracouta Stealing 
 Along" 320 
 
 The Water Greeted Me with a Roar and a 
 Dash that Flung Me Gasping Back upon 
 the Sand 342 
 
 A Bos'uM Has Often Kept Me Pleasant Com- 
 pany 356 
 
 I Always Shared Any Delicious Morsel with 
 
 Her 382 
 
 The Penguins Gazed at Him from the Rocky 
 
 Ledges 398 
 
Denizens of the Deep 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 THERE has of recent years grown up a very 
 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 excluding 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 Kiphng'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 infor- 
 mation presented in this narrative form shall be correct, 
 that where the imagination is called in to supply the 
 absence of exact data it shall not be allowed to commit 
 indefensible extravagances, and that the stories as a whole 
 
 9 
 
lo Denizens of the Deep 
 
 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 some Denizens of the Deep based very largely 
 upon personal observation, buttressed by scientific facts 
 and decorated by imagination. I well know how am- 
 bitious 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 for- 
 given) 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 acquaintance 
 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, these will be selected 
 lives, since there are so many species of deep-sea folk of 
 
Introduction 1 1 
 
 which man, by reason of his limitations, can know prac- 
 tically 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 immeasurably greater in the case 
 of those interesting beings of whom we only catch fleet- 
 ing 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 appro- 
 priate to all the life-histories of the sea-folk, but in some 
 
12 Denizens of the Deep 
 
 cases it will be peculiarly so. Notably among the mam- 
 malia 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 to do. Far 
 better go ahead and do it 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SPERM 
 WHALE 
 
 MY earliest recollections are rather hazy, but 
 principally centre themselves around pleasant 
 sensations. I was bom, 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 
 
 X3 
 
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, and 
 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 Httle 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 couch, 
 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 weis 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, w^ith 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 1 5 
 
 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 feUows 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 
 
1 6 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 ray 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 mottier'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 admiration. Slowly 
 we sank through the increasing coolness of the sea, 
 dimmer and dimmer grew the light from above, until. 
 
I Earn Experience 1 7 
 
 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 ghding 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. AU 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 was a 
 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 
 
1 8 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 dazzhng, and the simultaneous opening of aU 
 spiracles. Oh ! the sweet rush of heaven's air through 
 the quivering nostrils 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 the 
 Power that sways us aU. 
 
 Then to lie basking again, feeling that sweet breath, 
 the true essence of hfe, 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 any 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 
 
"ROSE PERPENDICULARLY WITH SOME PALELY GLOW- 
 ING MASS BETWEEN HIS JAWS." 
 
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. AU 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 ol 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 aU 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 
 
Happy Days 21 
 
 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-faUing 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 to obey. 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 pleasant 
 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 to eat. 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 once, did we see 
 anything to give us pause, and that was, as the water 
 
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 "DEEPER THAN I HAD EVER DREAMED OF, SKIRTING 
 
 THE BLACK BASES OF A MIGHTY MOUNTAIN 
 
 RANGE." 
 
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, aU 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 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 satisfaction 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. 
 
"HE WRITHED ROUND AND ENWRAPPED ME." 
 
Feeling Power 25 
 
 Many dangeious 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, bom to sport with the wild waves in their 
 utmost fury, or sink fat Iseneath 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 surface, 
 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 
 vertebrae, 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- 
 fuUy 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 languorous 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 stem 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, longing 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 stem 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 stiU, aU unheeding 
 their strife, we made our rounds feeding, ever feeding. 
 For we had only to sink a few yards to be in prof oundest 
 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 crealares 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 definite 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 
 aU 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 aU I felt the smarting, 
 
28 Autobiography of a Sperm Whale 
 
 burning pain of my wound, and without seeking turther 
 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 aU 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 
 
& 
 
 H 
 H 
 
 O 
 
 H 
 
 H 
 
 H 
 CS 
 
 « 
 
 02 
 
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 3 1 
 
 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 fuU 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-masteriag desire to have wives and children, and 
 coupled with it, really a consequence of 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 wiU 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 
 
 a long time ttiey are mere nobodies. They are of the 
 family, but have nothing to do with it but obey the 
 lead of the chief. AU 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 aU 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 at a 
 certain period in the life of the school there are furious 
 battles between the young bvills, 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 life'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 ceilled upon to 
 put his headship to the test and haply succeed in driving 
 him from his place and fiUing the same himself more 
 efficiently. Then a tremendous fight ensues lasting 
 
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 soHtary, 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 aU. 
 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 to lead. 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 bom, anrl 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-fuU 
 of men and women paused to view the fight and held 
 their breath to see how fiercely strove the monarchs 
 
34 Autobiogtaphy of a Sperm Whale 
 
 of the deep, though knowing nothing of the cause of 
 quarrel or of the prize of victory. 
 
 Still I bided my time, to the wonder of my compan* 
 ions, until a younger generation were fast approaching 
 the time when they 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 
 
 me — 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 ruler'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 and I to hold on. 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 
 
 sprang to the surface and awaited his coming. As soon 
 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. 
 
 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 untO 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 fuU 
 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, gUding 
 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 fuU 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 Uving. 
 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 measTire 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 cis 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 is a 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 moUusc 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. 
 
 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 bring 
 you joy. And so, farewell ! 
 
CHAPTER III 
 THE MYSTICETUS, OR RIGHT WHALE 
 
 PARTLY 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 
 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 is 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 hybemates 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 ceises 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, 
 
The Easeful Whale 41 
 
 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, as a 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 'whalebone ' 
 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 
 guUet 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 
 again with the sperm whale, who can swelUow 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. 
 
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 
 hvll, 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 Mysticeius, 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 Sk 
 
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. 
 
 Nor is the Orca the only sea foe, as distinguished 
 from man, that the Mysticeius 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. Stni, the swordfish is a valuable ally to the 
 kUler, 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 Huge Victim 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 animalculse 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 dose 
 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 navigable recesses of his habitat, 
 it appears cdmost 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, 
 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 comer 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 
 
 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 cis 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 aU 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 hfe 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- 
 
50 The Mysticetus, or Right Whale 
 
 engirdling sweep, makes the ice -islands toss and whirl 
 like chips in a miU-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 Mysticetus, 
 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 
 to their primitive condition of peaceful seclusion from 
 all foes except the three natural ones Eilready mentioned, 
 so that in a few years it wiU 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. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 THE HUMPBACK WHALE 
 
 BEAUTIFUL 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- 
 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;' 
 
 SI 
 
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. But she 
 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 
 
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 whUe 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 
 ttansfixing 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 
 riapidity 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 
 iiito 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 
 raitiier than retaliate while her calf was alive, in case- 
 
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 coUapse 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 
 buU 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 t37pical of the 
 daily life of the Humpback. Nothing could weU 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 ^"J 
 
 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 
 indulged in in the hope of ridding their skins of these 
 irritating hangers-on. But that I do not 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 rugae, lying closely 
 and tightly together, and with a depth in these grooves 
 of over a couple 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 beautifid shores of the most beautiful islands 
 in the world, and immune from the attack of man 
 ever5rwhere, 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 fully dealt 
 with. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 THE RORQUALS 
 
 THIS 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- 
 cinating 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 ; 
 
 99 
 
6o 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 6 1 
 
 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 aU 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 time of 
 nursing, and succeeds in so doing. 
 
 Fortunately for the Rorquals they are far less 
 yaluable commercially than any other whale. Their 
 blubber is very thin, their baleen very scanty, and as 
 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 sihhaldii 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 shghtly 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 the 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 wedlows 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 hun. 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, 
 
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. 
 
 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 
 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 nave 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 are among 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 Coryphcena, 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 i). 
 
 ■yd 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 eilways 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 hurUng their quivering 
 
Amenities of Porpoise Life 6g 
 
 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 or so. 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 yam. 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. 
 
 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 
 
The Confiding ' Black Fish ' 7 1 
 
 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 CEin do, being quite as agile 
 and certainly more intelligent. 
 
 The Black Fish (Glohicephalus) 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 any 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 seena 
 
72 The Rorquals 
 
 as if the worst ot 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 
 and killed for the sake of getting a few gallons of oil out 
 of him. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 SIRENIA 
 
 IT 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 in removing it 
 from the list of extant animals. 
 
 Most readers of Kipling's fascinating sea idyll. The 
 White Seal, wUl 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 hnk 
 
 7H 
 
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, 
 evidently a survival of the hairy covering of a land 
 animal being replaced as the sea-life is taken to by a 
 coating of blubber beneath the skin. 
 
 But the grand peculiarity about the Sirenia is their 
 vegetarianism. Some of the Dclphinidae 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 
 places them upon a plane apart from all their fellows 
 in a rigidly carnivorous community. Is it any wonder 
 that one species (Rkytina) has become extinct ? They 
 are too gentle for their stem world ; as much out of 
 place in it as a herd of antelopes in a jungle peopled with 
 tigers. 
 
 The first sight of the Dugong as it lifts its queer head 
 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, Sirenia, some justification for the old seafarers 
 
The Faithful Sirenia 75 
 
 who, from its appearance, wove their f abulae concerning 
 mermen and mermaids. Only, Uke 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 dose 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 Uke a whale, which member, though 
 useful enough to swim with, is of scarcely any value as 
 a weapon. 
 
 Another marked feattu^e 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 Hfted on to a plane 
 in our estimation far above that of any other sea- 
 
76 
 
 Sirenia 
 
 mammal or amphibious creature, all of which have 
 very elastic habits as regards their connubial associa- 
 tions. I leave the Sirenia with regret as being at once 
 one of the most interesting and one of the strangest of 
 all the denizens of the Deep Sea. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 THE WALRUS, MORSE, OR SEA-HORSE 
 
 FROM the Sirenia to the Walrus is one of the easiest 
 steps, for Sea Vitch, as Kiphng 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 stem 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 
 
 n 
 
78 The Walrus, Morse, or Sea^Horse 
 
 hide, scantily clothed with coarse brown hair, very 
 patchy, in fact not at all unhke one of those old hair 
 trunks we used to see occasionally. The fore flippers 
 are very short, and the hand-hke members are planted 
 flat at almost right 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 progression 
 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 aU. 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 floe 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 £is 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, hke 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 
 has selected for his sun-bath or doze. With the same 
 
"OF ALL LAND" WALKING ANIMALS NONE CAN COM- 
 PETE WITH THE WALRUS FOR CLUMSINESS." 
 
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 fioe 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 quiU 
 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 
 
8o The Walrus, Morse, or Sea^Horse 
 
 herd of infuriated Walrus, each armed with the for- 
 midable weapons before noted. 
 
 Contrary to the expectation aroused by its appear- 
 ance, the Walrus has a large and fully-developed brain, 
 although it is not especially notable for intelligence. 
 But then the study of the brain is so far from being well 
 advanced that we do not yet know why the elephant 
 with its comparatively insignificant brain should be 
 so much more intelligent than the ox, one-eighth of the 
 elephant's bulk and with a brain almost as large. Or 
 why the sperm whale should be so intelligent, with a 
 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 spinal 
 column, so that messages from outlying parts of the 
 body should not have so far to travel. I do not here 
 try to be funny but only state what has been seriously 
 suggested by naturalists. 
 
 In one respect, at any rate, the Walrus is the equal 
 of any of the higher intelligences. That is in the 
 parental quality. No animal cares for its offspring 
 so long or more lovingly. No animal will willingly 
 undergo more suffering and privation for the sake of 
 its young. There can be no doubt that the female 
 Walrus suckles its young, and provides other food for 
 it as well during the latter part of the period, for two 
 years. This has been, I think, abundantly proved 
 by observation, and, moreover, the great canine teeth 
 which develop into the formidable tusks characteristic 
 of this animal, and without which it is impossible for 
 it to live, do not show more than an inch or two until 
 it is two years old. But the mother never seems to 
 weary of her huge burden, the baby, if it be a male, 
 often reaching its mother's proportions before it is 
 weaned. With infinite, devoted patience she cares 
 
Defence, not Defiance 8 1 
 
 for it, watches over it, defends it with her own Dody, 
 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 himting, 
 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 
 
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 of 
 shallow waters, where he finds the humble molluscs 
 upon which he feeds. Such gaps as the Eskimo make 
 in the ranks of the Walrus will do no more than preserve 
 the natural balance necessary. If only civilised man 
 will let the Walrus alone, having found that the hunting 
 does not pay, there will soon be as many as ever there 
 were to people, if not exactly to beautify, the lonely 
 Arctic regions. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 THE SEA ELEPHANT 
 
 AS 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 immense 
 herds upon all the islands in the Antarctic Ocean, 
 notably Kerguelen's Land and the South Shetland. 
 To those barren spots vessels repaired with crews that 
 were ready for any fate. These men were landed upon 
 those awful solitudes, just bare rocks set in a roaring 
 desolate sea, without a green thing to gladden the eye, 
 and with the almost perpetual rage of the ocean en- 
 deavouring to daunt them. They had only the most 
 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 a 
 time, without seeing other faces or hearing other voices 
 than those of their own little company. In the chase 
 of the Sea Elephant, they ran terrible risks, endured 
 incredible hardships, and their reward after a successful 
 voyage worked out at something like los. per week. 
 Only the hide and blubber were sought, the Elephant 
 Seal having no fur. 
 
 My own recollection of this miserable business is 
 a brief one, but quite lengthy enough to make me 
 thankful that I shall never repeat the experience. In 
 an evil hour I engaged to proceed from New Zealand 
 to the Auckland and Campbell Islands in search of Sea 
 Elephants, being assured that it was not only exciting 
 sport, but a very pleasant pastime. Alas, for the 
 depravity of humanity ! Could anything be less 
 worthy of the title of pastime than that ? And 
 yet I am sure that, as compared with similar work 
 upon such terrific rock-bound islets as the South 
 Shetlands or South Georgia, it might even be called 
 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 
 
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 woxild fall an inert mass at our feet, 
 when we were to cut their throats immediately. But 
 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 gentle 
 drip drip of moisture from the rocks around distinctly 
 audible between the long, sullen, thunderous roll of 
 the breakers, and the occasional hideous roaring of the 
 seals, and to my excited fancy it seemed as if it were 
 the ticking of the clock of my life almost run down. 
 For natural scepticism asserted itself, and I did not, 
 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 of 
 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 swipe 
 across the neck with the knife as hard as you can cut. 
 Don't do nothing but that to as many as you can.' 
 
 Off we all rushed, he leading us, without a sound 
 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 
 
"WE WBKE SUDDENLY STARTLED STIFF BY A MOST 
 TREMENDOUS ROARING AS OP A TROOP OP LIONS." 
 
A Fearsome Fight 8y 
 
 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 their alarm. Presently another yeU 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 so it 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, 
 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 
 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 my 
 subject that Sandy did not lose his arm. In spite of 
 the bones being broken, nay almost ground to pulp in 
 several places, and the extensive laceration of the flesh, 
 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 one 
 arm. 
 
 Strangely enough, I could put no heart in my work, 
 for I could not help feeling aU 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 
 persouEil 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 wiU testify, 
 he is no insatiable hunter after higher organisms. 
 Cuttle-fish, those snaky, uncanny things, that seem 
 to have been created in order to provide food for a 
 full half of the sea mammals, and the lower moUusca, 
 
Contented with Little 8g 
 
 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 
 
 SO 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 economy 
 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, Sea 
 Bear, Sea Leopard, Harp Seal, Saddle-back Seal, or 
 any other arbitrary distinction whatever. These 
 minutiae, 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 of 
 our local museum. We have other work to do. From 
 the sea elephant then, down to the next largest, the 
 Sea Lion, is a longish step. No such gap, in point of 
 size, separates the rest of the Seals, wide as their 
 diversities are. But in one respect, agility, speed, and 
 grace, tria juncta in uno, they are all far superior to 
 the sea elephant. 
 
 No one who has ever watched a Seal in his native 
 element, and possessed anything of an eye for beauty 
 of curve and grace of motion, can ever forget the 
 exponent of these delights to the eye. No fish, swim 
 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, 
 hke 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 f£ist 
 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 grpatest 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, 
 
92 Seals 
 
 bared teeth, and glaring eyes, ever spoUing for a fight, 
 and as often as not covered with torn and gory wounds 
 from head to foot. These do not seem to cause him 
 any inconvenience, or allay his fierce desire for battle. 
 
 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 the 
 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 httle skirmishing, if haply he may acquire an extra 
 wife or so. 
 
"AS EACH CNE REACHES THE ROCKS SHE IS POUNCED 
 UPON BY A ROARING FRENZIED MOB OF MALES." 
 
Seal Domesticities 93 
 
 Now the happy proprietor of 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 bom. 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, 
 gambolhng 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 ' rookeiy,' 
 
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. 
 
 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 win 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 Califomian coast, and cut up by a 
 
Sealing Horrors 95 
 
 party of 'longshoremen, was found to have a nice Uttle 
 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 Bum-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 shoiild 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 stem 
 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 word 
 comfort is forgotten. 
 
 And the pay ? Ah, well, as it always is unfailingly, 
 the rewards go to those who have done nothing but loll 
 easily at home in luxury. Lady, with the hundred- 
 guinea seal-skin coat, know for a certainty that the 
 men who looked death between the eyes and brutalised 
 themselves lower than the shark to wrench that coat of 
 yours from its rightful owners got less than a hundred 
 pence for so doing. The bulk of that money went to 
 city magnates and full-fed speculators who never gave 
 its origin a second thought. 
 
 Of late years the indiscriminate slaughter of Seals 
 having threatened to exterminate them entirely, a good 
 deal of diplomatic intervention has taken place for the 
 purpose, first, of giving the Seal a close time, and, 
 secondly, of protecting the immature Seal. But it is 
 a diii&cult thing to control men who become so lawless 
 as seal-hunters do from the nature of their calling, and 
 I fear that as far as the fur Seal is concerned, at any 
 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 with 
 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 that 
 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. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 THE SHARK 
 
 PASSING 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 J 
 
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 such as 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 yams have been invented, pubhshed, 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 of truth 
 in them. 
 
 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 QQ 
 
 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 
 Atlantic, 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 solitary 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 
 
100 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 fin on it six 
 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 skiU 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 wiU be accepted without a boggle 
 
A Strange Gompanionship lOI 
 
 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 buUt 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 hag 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 like 
 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 from it. The attendant fish vanish affrightedly ; 
 there is no danger of any of them feeling those lethal 
 jaws, being in speed and agility far superior to any 
 Shark. 
 
 In a little while her rage moderates, a considerable 
 
The Hunger Search 1 03 
 
 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 manoeuvres, 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 '^^^ 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 Ups 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 
 Tmconscious 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 1 05 
 
 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 a ton. This is lowered over the stem 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 Is^ng 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. 
 
Io6 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 world, and the 
 deserted mother seeks another mate who may provide 
 her with a new family to suffer for and be deserted 
 by in their due turn. 
 
 In the few preceding pages I have dealt with the 
 Shark as if there were only one kind, although I did 
 carefully mention the fact 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. 
 
"THERE ARE MORE VARIETIES OP THE SHARK FAMILY 
 THAN OP ANY OTHER PISH PAMILY LIVING." 
 
Curious Sharks 107 
 
 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 
 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. 
 
 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 (Xiphias), 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 
 bis way, has a pleasant little fashion of disembowelling 
 
I08 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 
 pELSsage 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 lOQ 
 
 whale — outsiae 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 is a 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 
 
no The Shark 
 
 whaleboats, and all of them were tearing at the body 
 as if they had 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 
 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 
 for our pains. 
 
 A whole wealth of literature lies in the discussion 
 of the Raiiae, those homely, shark-like creatures whose 
 flesh is so highly esteemed by the London poor, 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 
 ' Vide Louis Becke, By R$et and Palm, 
 
A Plea for the Shark III 
 
 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. 
 
 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 ride 
 
112 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 superincmnbent 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 yam 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 iU. 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 
 
An Object-Lesson 1 13 
 
 offering to put his finger in the mouth. I pulled him 
 away, and holding him by the arm, inserted a stick 
 of wood an inch square into that quivering cavity. 
 Instantly the jaws closed, there was a grinding sound, 
 and the stick fell in two halves, bitten through as 
 cleanly as a horse bites a carrot. The boy had learned 
 his lesson. That Skate became the prey of the sailors, 
 who much appreciated him fried, and although we 
 had a fairly large crew there was enough meat on his 
 wings to give them a good supper and breakfast. 
 
 Here we will leave the Sharks ; for, although I 
 have said practically nothing of the Dog Fish, I feel 
 that there is not really sufficient distinction between 
 them and the usual Shark to warrant any detailed 
 remarks about them. The Dog-fish is just a small 
 shark. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 THE TURTLE 
 
 HERE we come upon a deep-sea denizen that occu- 
 pies an almost unique position among his fellows, 
 in that he has no enemies but man. 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 feUow-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 fowl, yet his flesh partakes of the charac- 
 teristics of aU three. Eating seems a mere superfluity 
 with him, since for weeks at a time he may be headed 
 up in a barrel (with the bung out) and emerge at the 
 long last apparently none the worse for his enforced 
 abstinence from food, from light, and almost from air. 
 His range is restricted to the temperate and tropical 
 114 
 
1 
 
 d3 
 
 09 
 
The Turtle Pair 1 15 
 
 seas, and is extended or contracted according to the 
 season. 
 
 And, finally, els 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 
 marvellous. Also, it is a matter for very great wonder 
 how closely he is alHed to the tortoises of the land, 
 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 
 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. 
 But the fact is that they were ill at ease. 
 
 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 
 where he was. Such food as he needed was abundant, 
 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 
 leave him. Their communication of ideas and views 
 
Ii6 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 a rate. It is a 
 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. 
 
Homeward Bound 1 17 
 
 They creep up behind the dozing, hstless, and deserted 
 Spharga, the second mate rises stiffly to his feet, raises 
 his iron and crash ! it has pierced cahpee and calipash, 
 nor can any struggling on the part of the impaled one 
 release him from that awful 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, and all 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 sdl along been aiming at, guided by 
 that mysterious homing instinct of which mere humans 
 know nothing. A tiny surf curdles round the snow-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. 
 
Il8 The Turtle 
 
 The four flippers fling 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 ? Wlio 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 
 
CtfBtOLtvjri.jr-'N Wvit, /«*: 
 
 "ALL THE HI:N(JUY SEA PEOPLE ^LVKE RESPECTFUL 
 WAY FOR HER." 
 
The Beginnings of Turtle IIQ 
 
 have flung herself upon me with heroic carelessness as 
 to the result. And the youngster was not merely not 
 her own, but belonged to a totally different species ! 
 Oh, 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 
 presently 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 
 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 
 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 tiU a certain period his protecting 
 armour is soft, no defence against hungry fish. What 
 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 nutans) grows in tropical profusion, 
 holding within its branching fronds an astounding 
 abundance of marine Ufe. And our little Turtle, feeling 
 his defencelessness, hies him into the heart of one of 
 these weed masses, being presently joined by some of 
 his relatives whose instincts have led them close after 
 him ! 
 
 Here for a blissful season the baby Turtles, all un- 
 leaded save by the all-knowing Intelligence, gather 
 
120 The Turtle 
 
 and grow. Here they feed tinmolested, 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 stras^ng 
 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 hve, 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 hves 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 aU 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 Hfe over the 
 trackless ocean. 
 
 Now it does not appear with any degree of accuracy 
 
Mysteries of Growth I2I 
 
 vbat the Turtle, the Edible Turtle, Kves iipoa dming 
 bis adolescence. There be Turtle who are known to 
 hve v^xm strange foods, bat in eveiy case they aie a 
 sort of cooqircanise between Turtle and tortcuse, or even 
 Turtle, toctoise, and lizard. (H these are the Emysa ura 
 sarp€niina, dwdhng in and around Chiental lakes and 
 rivers, and hviug indisdimiDately npon small fish, 
 reptiles, and even small birds. The Gymtuyfms of 
 AMcan rireis feeds, dear ereature, upon young croco- 
 diles, and evcdves from that uncanny diet most delicate 
 flesh, \rtiich. albeit it is stron^y flavonred with musk, 
 is most bi^ify pdxed. But the Thalassians, or true 
 Sea Turtles, may eat o^ alire or dead, or they may eat 
 certain kinds of weed ; all we can say is, that we do not 
 know what they eat afx how kmg they can fast, except 
 that from the time a Turtle has been ' turned.' say, on a 
 Jamaican beatdi until it has been converted into soup 
 ftH" a Ixwd Mayor's banquet in London, it eats nothing, 
 and does not seem any the poorer fcs' it. 
 
 Being of a kthargic habit, of course there is not 
 muc& waste of tissue. Havii^ assisted at the butchay 
 of many Turtles just froan the sea, and examined, as 
 was always my wont, the contents of thdr stomadts. 
 I haTe never found anything idaiti&able therein, ex- 
 cept a few stcHies and cuttle-fish beaks, which latter 
 kx^ as if the Torfle, like neaify all other sea fi^ and 
 mammals, eats cuttle, but is not proof positive. And, 
 beside, the squid is so ploitiful in some weed-covered 
 q)ots of ocean, that if the Turtle grazed upon the weed 
 be could not help eating maigr cuttles at the same 
 time. 
 
 But, witatever oar ]niung friend eats, and w herev e r 
 he eats it, one fact emerges ; it agrees with him im- 
 mensely. He grows apace, his homy covering growing, 
 too, since be does not cast it like the Crustacea: heleads 
 
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 wiU 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 moUusca 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 a savage. 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 long 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 
 so lazy that they have developed a sucking arrangement 
 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, gUstening in 
 
Turtle Turning 1 25 
 
 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 
 captmred 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 aU-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 highly developed creature. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 THE CUTTLE-FISH OR SQUID 
 
 WE now come to the consideration of one of the 
 mostwidelydistributed, 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 
 
 izt 
 
128 The Cuttle-fish Or Squid 
 
 the Ociopoda, 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 finie specimens. Suddenly, I trod 
 upon something like a blob of jelly. Fearing a sting, 
 for most jeUy-fish {Medusae) sting like nettles, 1 made 
 to step off, only to feel both my legs gripped in several 
 places by something that clung as if it would eat into 
 
The Horrible Octopus 1 29 
 
 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. AH 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 
 
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 Octopoia 
 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 aU 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 faUs 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 
 prohfic, it does not increase in numbers td' 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 
 aU. 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 faima 
 of the sea, of the real conditions of their lives. One 
 
"OCTOPODIA ARE TRUE SCAVENGERS, EATING ANY- 
 THING EATABLE WHICH COMES IN THEIR WAY." 
 
The Octopus of Fiction 13 1 
 
 thing, however, I do know, and that is that the many 
 sensational pieces of fiction which have been built up 
 Jules ■\'^eme and Victor Hugo fashion, are not worth 
 wasting thought over. 
 
 For first of aU 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 fax as at present ascertciined, 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 acetahulae 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 acetahulae 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 aU 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 coUar 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 
 
The Use of Squid 1 33 
 
 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 another 
 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, to be 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 molluscs 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 bom 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 fuU. 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 
 in size. In consequence, they are not nearly so prolific, 
 
Insatiable Nightmares 1 35 
 
 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 pre5dng 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 fuUy 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 baH-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 stUl, 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 
 gr 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, Uke most of the 
 deep-sea folk, without any \ailgar 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 Octopoda 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 iElian, 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 LucuUus 
 in Sicily to grace one of his memorable banquets, 
 adding that he knew his love for fish. He also adds 
 
Cuttlefish Yarns 1 37 
 
 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 mediaeval 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 judiciai restraint of 
 the pagan writers, these Northern litterateurs 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 oflE 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 
 
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 
 calanx.ties, 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 
 frithomi' 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 
 
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 aU 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 evjn this vast moUusc'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 moUusca 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 ahnost 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 moUusca of the most heroic 
 size. 
 
 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 
 
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, foreccistle, 
 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 Sauid 
 
 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 sketches 
 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- 
 
Beauty versus Utility 1 45 
 
 licious. Some of the most brilliantly beautiful fish 
 I have ever known have been the most dangerous to 
 man because of their poisonous qualities. And con- 
 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 
 index to the deeper and more lasting qualities. 
 
 10 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 DEEP-SEA CHIMiERAS 
 
 IN 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 chimaeras, since their aspect is quite 
 outre 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 canying 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, from a 
 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 
 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 known, 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 diificult 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 Chimeeras 
 
 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 vertebrae, 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 fisli 
 
A Freak FisI^ 1 49 
 
 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 stiU 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 yeUow 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 Chimseras 
 
 the deep sea during this last quarter of a century. The 
 salient note of these chimseras 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- 
 ceeding to particularise some individuals ; it is con- 
 cerning light. 
 
WHERE NATURE HAS OUTDONE HERSELF IN THE 
 FASHION[NG OF STRANGE MONSTERS. 
 
Self Illuminators 151 
 
 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 aifected 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 
 
153 Deep'Sea Chimaeras 
 
 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 the 
 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 
 
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 sailor 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 
 yams, 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 chimasras, 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 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 chimsera, 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 Chimeeras 
 
 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, els 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. 
 
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. Rondeletia 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 
 queevness of the fish. Simenchelys abides an5nvhere 
 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 Chimceras 
 
 their bodies, at what misery to his involuntary hosts 
 can only be imagined. 
 
 It is curious and instructive to compare him with 
 Eurypharynx, well sumamed 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 aU 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. It is a very quaint 
 beast indeed, and rejoices or suffers under the euphoni- 
 ous epithet of Saccopharynx fiagellum. 
 
 Alepisaurus ferox is the name given to a fish that 
 
A Swift Glutton 157 
 
 . is not at all unlike the gigantic mackerel 
 . word-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 outri, even though 
 it does frequent great depths. 
 
 Its range is very great, specimens having been found 
 in the North-Westem Atlantic, in AustraHan 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 ever5Avhere, 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 Chimseras 
 
 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 
 
A Deep'Sea Beauty 159 
 
 incautiously up to one once, I found to my astonishment 
 that as I hfted 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, whose 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 htmdred 
 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 
 Graeco-Latin name Lopholatilus. 
 
 Most unusually. Dr. Goode, who describes it, goes 
 into something very hke a rapture over it, even to 
 the length of using superlatives. In addition to the 
 usual 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 
 
l6o 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-of-pearl ; this colour pervading more or less 
 the whole fin, which has large yellow maciolations. 
 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. 
 
A Gigantic Holocaust l6l 
 
 But early in 1882 vessels amving at the North- 
 Eastem 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 
 v,'aters 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 
 
 II 
 
162 Deep-Sea Chimaeras 
 
 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 aU 
 under the heading of chimseras, 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, aU of whom 
 are found in very deep waters, but are none of them 
 chimseras 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, or a bull into 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 characteristics 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 Reinhardtii, 
 comes from the deeps off the Greenland coast, but is 
 a more respectable-looking creature, fourteen inches 
 long. 
 
 But Melanocefus Johnsonii 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 in their sea-solitudes unknown and, save 
 for one another, unmolested. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 SEA-SERPENTS 
 
 AVERY 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 
 at all. 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 
 
1 66 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 ' deefeeculty,' 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 fim, or else aU 
 trace of them has been lost, they having invented 
 names and authorities as well as the serpent. 
 
* 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 i, 1891, from the deck 
 of the s.s. ' Rotomahana.' Peter Nelson, a quarter- 
 master, says that the head was like that of an eel. 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 
 
1 68 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 truimphantly 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 
 credulity 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 
 
Origin of Sea^Serpent Stories l6g 
 
 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 Basilaurus), 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 teUs 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 an3rwhere 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 wiU 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 kjnds of §ea-crabs, It has 
 
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 
 do (!!). 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 yam, 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 
 Sillimanni, 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 yam was not kiUed, hardly scotched, 
 and the ' fossil Sea-serpent ' stiU yielded a plentiful 
 harvest of dollars. And in The Illustrated London News 
 of October 28, 1848, Professor SiUiman ventures to 
 state, in the hope apparently that the previous con- 
 tradictions would be forgotten, ' that the spinal column 
 
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-set pent 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 attairmients, 
 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 ' Paiiline.' 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. 
 
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 1 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 
 
176 
 
 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 yam, 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 MuU 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. ' Daedalus,' 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 
 beheve to be true, yet no less an authority than 
 Professor Owen in a long letter to The Times of Novem- 
 ber II, 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 
 was a great seal or sea elephant ; much to the captain's 
 annoyance, who replies very warmly to the great 
 pjJaeontologist's letter. Another authority gives it 
 as his opinion that the creature was a huge basking 
 
Incredulity of High Authorities 1 77 
 
 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 ' Dasdalus,' 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 Plesio- 
 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 
 
 12 
 
178 
 
 Sea^Serpents 
 
 acquainted with our larger sea mammals and other 
 fauna not usually seen. 
 
 Are there then no Sea-serpents ? Certainly 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 O-' 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 aU 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 
 the atmosphere. 
 
 I firmly believe myself that cuttle-fish lurk in the 
 
Sea^ Serpents and Religion 1 79 
 
 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 mediaeval 
 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 m5d;hologies 
 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 wiU, 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 Mahaharata 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 
 
i8o 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 
 feet 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 
 
*The' Sea^Serpent Non^Existent l8l 
 
 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 
 
 THE 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 shoidders 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 cor37phaena 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 fl5dng-fish cleaving the air 
 overhead at top speed, that it has not been less than 
 
1 84 
 
 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 out of his hands as 
 the dying fish's vibrations shook him like some great 
 galvanic battery. And for hours after he was imable 
 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 SiciUan coasts, where they are known 
 as the Tunny, they are probably found larger than 
 anywhere else. As the Tuiia, they are weU known 
 
A Great Fighter 185 
 
 on the Californian coast, and afford perhaps the acme 
 of anghng sport, testing the angler to the extreme 
 hmit 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, Barbadoes, where I was 
 fishing for flying-fish in one of the locally owned craft. 
 We had been most busily employed baling up the 
 swarming Exoceiae, 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-flsh 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 yeU 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 
 
1 86 The Albacore 
 
 of the bay amongst the shipping. We could not 
 get him on board, so we secured him by a doiible 
 bight of the hne 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 Tuiia 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 dangling 
 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 to others. He was eventually secured when fagged 
 out by a man being lowered over the side and slipping 
 
A Mighty Traveller 187 
 
 a running bowline over his tail. He weighed one 
 hundred and twenty pounds — a mere infant. 
 
 ^,..^he range of the Albacore, Tunny, or Tuna, 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 1903 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 ^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 popidation with 
 profitable emplo5mient 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. 
 
 •-"^ VeryTovely 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 ^gean 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- 
 tiful is the scene below, about the bases of those quaint 
 
1 88 The Albacore 
 
 rock masses, whose summits are crowned by e3nie- 
 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 return 
 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 
 
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 liiy 
 turn, not only the young of other fish which swarmed 
 in our deep retreat, but any of my o\vn 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 
 
I go 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 bom at the same time in the ^gean, and 
 ranged the ' waters of Mid- Atlantic as being in my 
 rightful realm, a veritable sovereign of the sea. I 
 
Adult Joys 19 1 
 
 skirted the vast masses of m5n:iad-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 fl5dng-fish, and occasional^ 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 hke myself, until 
 the whole area of sea around that nearly submerged 
 hull was literally alive, and aU 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 35 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 aU 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 creatiures. 
 
 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 
 
1 94 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, T 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 untU, 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 fiU 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 ray 
 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 sout' 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. 
 
ig6 
 
 The Albacore 
 
 That was a premonition of disaster, had I but 
 known it, for on the second day of my arrival on the 
 Califomian 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, puU 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 terribly. 
 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 1 97 
 
 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 j oumey- 
 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 feUows 
 I feU in with. Having led quite a solitary life for so 
 
igS 
 
 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 aU 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. 
 
 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 igg 
 
 who woiild 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 
 otir himgry 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 
 
Our Welcome Home 20 1 
 
 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 where 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 
 of rag was at once mistaken for a flying-fish or squid, 
 and eagerly snapped at. 
 
 Oh, it was a black and awful time for us, and yet 
 in spite of the elaborate preparations made ever5rwhere 
 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 ^Egean, to those quiet spawning-beds 
 where I was born, and where in due time I arrived 
 again after visiting aU 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 game time keeping a wary eye open for 
 
THE FEJLVLES SETTLED BO'^'S UPON THE SMOOTH 
 PATCHES OF SAXDY SEA-FLOOR. 
 
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 
 
 ONE 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 Coryphana. 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, i.e. the decay 
 of the sailing vessel, there are many sailors afloat who 
 have never, 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 whUe fishing for Bonito from the fi5dng 
 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 feU 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 bim 
 
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 {Xiiihias), 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, 
 
2o8 The Bonito 
 
 ill 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, i.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 parboihng seems 
 
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 seaUng 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 be left 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 211 
 
 rise in the temperature of the water outside their 
 usual Umits, so that I have caught them north of the 
 forty degree hne 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 
 +o geographers as the ' West African Basin,' where 
 the depth varies from sixteen to eighteen thousand 
 fathoms, and the sea literally swarms with hfe. 
 
 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 eighteen 
 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 evidently 
 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 roU 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 aU kinds. 
 
 But the chief wonder was a few cables' length 
 behind the strange line of white. It proved to be 
 on nearer inspection, a mass of land vegetation con- 
 sisting of several huge trees inextricably entangled 
 by their branches and snake-like convolutions of 
 giant 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. At a 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 shghtest 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 : ' Stem, 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 
 
2l6 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 gUls, 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 giUs of their 
 host, and thenceforward lead a placid, well-fed, and 
 uneventful existence 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 teiste. 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 
 
21 8 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 joie 
 de vivre. It is a pretty and at the same time a peculiar 
 sight to see a large school of Skip-jack aU 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 wUl 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 219 
 
 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 saitsfaction, two occasions on 
 which, by the purest accident, I 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 d5dng 
 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 fl5dng-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 tiU 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 
 
 THE 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, 
 
222 The Flying^ish 
 
 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 that 
 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 gentleman's 
 letter. 
 
 But in the case of the Flying-fish I readily admit 
 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 Flpng-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 Flpng-fish family (Exocetus) to two 
 species : E. volitans and E. nigricans. 
 
 The first named, and the smaller of the two, has 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 
 wmgs 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 manoeuvre of the 
 fish were a leap, its direction, either vertically or hori- 
 zontally, could not change, except that its trajectory 
 
224 '^^^ Flying^fish 
 
 would be more or less flattened according to the 
 distance leaped. That much, I think, will be admit red. 
 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 exhaus'ted, 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 
 
Rapipity of light 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, 
 wnich 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 Fl5dng-fish, about a pound and 
 a half in weight, with its head almost driven into its 
 body. And, as a salve for his grievous woimd, 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 giUs, and both these inflations are 
 performed automatically at the moment the fish leaves 
 
Domestic Haunts of Exocetus 227 
 
 tlie 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 einy 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 
 umbflicus were also often hauled up, and even to the 
 naked eye were recognisable at that early stage as 
 Fljdng-fish. But I am quite conscious that the question 
 of the breeding-places of the Indian Ocean and Pacific 
 Fl5dng-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 inamediate 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. 
 
228 The Flying.fish 
 
 The Fl3nng-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 sis 
 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' 22g 
 
 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 duU 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, and, 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 yard 
 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 yoimg deep-water sailor, 
 it is nothing but a yam. No such fishery is carried 
 on an3nvhere, 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 at aU 
 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 Fl3ang-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 saut6 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 23 1 
 
 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 Fl5dng-fish are scarce, 
 albacore, dolphin, bonito, or jew-fish are plentiful, 
 all these abounding ia the deep-blue waters which 
 come up so dose to the island shores. 
 
 The method pursued in this fishery is even more 
 simple than that described in the yam 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 Unes and hooks, for possible big fish, and a set 
 of granes. The boat is usually sloop-rigged, and 
 from three to ten tons, canying the usual boat's gear, 
 but always undecked. A few Fl5dng-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 
 groimd 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 alwa}^ 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, Eilbacore, 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 caimot see any fun in fishing except with a 
 rod, and who glory in beguiling the mighty tuna 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 Uttle sport thrown in. 
 And so, taking it all round, this old-fashioned fishery 
 of one of the least known, least imderstood sea people 
 in the ocean, goes merrily on in a satisfactorily suc- 
 cessful way, supplying the islanders with an abimdance 
 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 ^^^^ 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 catching them, and the requisite energy 
 to do so. 
 
 Flying-fish are also found in the Mediterranean, 
 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 flight ; and 
 thirdly, how vast are his numbers. 
 
 Very vividly come to my mind the many occasions 
 when I have seen more than a square mile of smooth 
 sea-surface suddeiUy 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 
 h?l§ fallen into the midst of the perishing ones these 
 
I HAVE SEEN THE SEA-SURFACE SUDDENLY BROKEN 
 INTO FOAM BY MYRIADS OF FLYING-FISH. 
 
Bizarre Flyings 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 Fljring-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 Exoceius. 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, at a good fishmonger's, 
 has its beautiful fins quite normal in size, the second 
 
236 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, Dadylop- 
 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 
 swallow him. 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 
 
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 Exocetus, 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-yam, 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 
 
 WHEREFORE, 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. 
 
 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 is an easier name at 
 any rate than Coryphaena, 
 
 The principal characteristic of this marvellously 
 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 duU 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 beautiful, 
 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 
 
240 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, in a 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. 
 
 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 with a 
 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 ? It is probably 
 a survival of some elaborate organ which had lost its 
 usefulness, and so became atrophied and disappeared 
 according to Nature's inexorable decrees. 
 
 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 yeUow gold, and its contrast with the 
 dazzling peacock blue of the back immediately 
 
Elegance and Colouf 241 
 
 beneath it is exceedingly striking as well as pleasing. 
 It is always carried erect, but sometimes, as when the 
 fish mcikes 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 iin 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 metaUic hue as the dorsal 
 fin. The pectoral, ventral, and anal fins are com- 
 paratively insignificant, as indeed is usual with what 
 I like to caU normally shapen fish. Only oM^re-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 coloiu: she is quite as gaudy as her spouse, 
 but in size, as usual, inferior. 
 
 Now with regard to their breeding-places, they 
 
 16 
 
243 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 whade 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 fl5dng-fish and squid, who, being hke 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 T"^^ 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 The Dolphin 
 
 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 imtil 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 turn- 
 
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 stiU 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 aU. 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 at a 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 wiU 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 
 
Luring Dolphin 249 
 
 water under the stem, 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 
 fljdng-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 hjis 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 aU 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 exceedingly 
 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 ofif 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 bright 
 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 
 
SOMETIMES HE IS TAKEN OFF HIS GUARD AND FALLS 
 A PREY TO A SHARK. 
 
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 about with graceful 
 undulations. This great tangle of living filaments 
 was densely populated by all sorts of smedl 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 
 manoeuvre 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 from 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 saiUng 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 fl.ying-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 dehghtful 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 
 
 DIFFICULT 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, tuna, 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 virithin 
 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 
 
 356 
 
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 Simday 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 
 
258 
 
 The Mackerel 
 
 to its neighbour appearing on some inland table twenty- 
 four hours later. But it is certainly a most beautiful 
 fish in appearance on a fishmonger's slab, its lovely 
 colours remaining even when it is stale, although the 
 bright red of the giUs has changed to a dull maroon. 
 But its flesh is firm and easily separated from the bones, 
 a great virtue in fish among people who have no cooks 
 to prepare their food, and see that there is nothing 
 to do to it at table but to put it in the mouth. It 
 says much for the superlative excellence of the herring, 
 that it remains in such high esteem in spite of its 
 multitude of small bones, which are most dangerous 
 if they get into the throat. Whatever the cause, 
 the fact remains that, in spite of its comparatively 
 high price and lack of flavour, the Mackerel is ex- 
 ceeding popular among our workers, and a joy to the 
 costermongers, whose ability and energy in distri- 
 buting perishable goods among the consumers is 
 unimpeachable. 
 
 But apart altogether from the commercial aspects 
 of the Mackerel, he is an exceedingly interesting fish 
 in his ways, his mode of hfe. Ferocious in the extreme, 
 he spares nothing that he can swallow, and few items 
 of his prey can escape him, owing to his great swiftness, 
 due to his elegant shape. Moreover, the colouring 
 of the Mackerel is more perfectly adapted for con- 
 cealment than that of any other fish. It is perhaps 
 fairly well known that the reason why nearly all fish 
 are dark-coloured above and light-coloured below 
 is for purposes of concealment, for looking down upon 
 them from the light the dark shade blends with the 
 dark blue of the sea, while looking upwards to the light 
 the silvery belly matches the water, which is almost 
 colourless when looked through from that position ; 
 but the wavy transverse bands of light green and rich 
 
Ferocity of Mackerel 259 
 
 blue on the Mackerel's back blend so admirably with 
 either green or blue sea that they render him dmost 
 invisible from above, while the iridescent sheen on 
 the silvery underside of the fish makes an even more 
 perfect combination with the glittering sea, as looked 
 through from below. Consequently he plays a terribly 
 destructive part among the smaller fish, such as the 
 young of herrings, pilchards, etc. 
 
 Fortunately he does not attack in schools ; if he 
 did, a school of Mackerel would probably ' absorb ' 
 a school of herring, leaving not a • wrack behind.' 
 No, when in the amazing hosts of the school, although 
 ferociously carnivorous as ever, the Mackerel seems 
 to keep his predatory instincts in abeyance for the 
 time, as if under strict discipline. Even then I 
 imagine it would fare hardly with any straggling 
 creature, helpless and edible, that fell in the way of 
 that multitudinous march. Do I not remember 
 vividly a story I was told as a child, of a man who, 
 swimming out from Brighton, became surrounded by 
 a school of mackerel, and was seen holding up his arms 
 for succour, with scores of the ravenous creatures 
 clinging to his flesh. The story went on to its gruesome 
 climax of the recovery of the skeleton almost stripped 
 clean, an hour after the man's motions for help were 
 first seen. I cannot say that I place implicit rehance 
 upon the story, but I have seen a school of Mackerel 
 round the carcase of a dead bullock, and bear witness 
 to the savage energy with which the fish in their 
 thousands tore at the fetid mass of flesh. And so 
 I would rather not go swimming in the midst of a 
 school of Mackerel. 
 
 In common with his larger congeners, the Mackerel 
 is strictly pelagic — he has no use for the bottom at all. 
 It is even said by naturalists that the Mackerel spawns 
 
26o 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 unreceivable. 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 aU 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 wiU 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 
 
GARFISH AND HORSE MACKEREL SWIMMING 
 SEDATELY IN FRONT OF THE SCHOOL. 
 
The Mackerel Guide 25 1 
 
 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 guU 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 a 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 as a curiosity. Another 
 strange possession of this fish is its blue 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 The Mackerel 
 
 Mackerel family were to be found, as is the case almost 
 ever37where, 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 in the head. 
 The largest specimens I have ever seen were in Zanzibar, 
 where, around the guardship ' London,' they would 
 he lazily sunning themselves, perfectly secure from 
 molestation, because the crew were strictly forbidden 
 to meddle with fish of any kind, for fear of cholera or 
 poisoning. 
 
 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 coarse 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 Horse- 
 mackerel of St. Helena and certain West Indian ports 
 is, I know, poisonous, and should never be eaten ; 
 but this must be attributable to its food. 
 
 I would here remark in passing that, while all raw 
 fish and meat is susceptible of being poisoned by the 
 direct rays of the tropical moon, the Mackerel family 
 
The Baleful Moon 263 
 
 are 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 more 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 among, deep-water sailors 
 than these. 
 
 The Mackerel is fairly plentiful 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 consideration 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 Xiphias. It must be premised that there 
 are several varieties of Xiphias 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 duU-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, ever3nvhere 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 universahty 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 stiU hold the albacore the king of all 
 fish, while purposing to do fuU justice to the claims 
 of the Xiphias. 
 
 To a sheltered nook of the Maldive Island reef 
 bases there entered on a day a httle 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 sUvem 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 gUding 
 in they fled, an5nvhere 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 ghded gently over the 
 bottom, waving their broad pectoral and ventral fins 
 gently, as if they were stiU further smoothing the 
 white sand. Having apparently settled matters to 
 
266 The Mackerel 
 
 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 clear water with their tails, and shot 
 through the entrance between the towering bastions 
 of rock as arrows flee from the bow. 
 
 In an hour they had rejoined the 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 in with a 
 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 meal kept respectfully 
 at a distance. 
 
 But now let us return to the spawning ground. 
 There upon the speckless floor of sand lay evenly 
 spread countless thousands of eggs, each large as a 
 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 here 
 and there 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 emergence 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, 
 
268 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 arrayed 
 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 comers 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 
 
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 Xiphias 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 hand of 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 his eyes nearly. With a perfectly indescrib- 
 able movement he stems 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 
 Xiphias 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, involving 
 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 she^-r 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 in his 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 
 damage 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 are seldom 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 
 cowardly carcase in such an enterprise. 
 
 As the Xiphias grows to his full size he becomes 
 aggressively 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 at 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 bom 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 of the sword. 
 
 But this fiercely aggressive spirit has its drawbacks 
 too. As, for instance, when the Xiphias 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. 
 
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 
 certainly 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 homy conical little plates 
 arranged along the posterior third of the lateral Une. 
 All around Australasia there are to be found congeners 
 of this little fish, called by sailors Cavalle. 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 weU 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-hke 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 
 
 THE 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 sufliciently firm, has not the 
 flavour possessed by many other of our edible fishes. 
 His habits are regidar, 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 
 yam. 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. 
 
 a74 
 
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, 
 aU 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 an5rthing 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 fecimdity. It has been 
 calculated that a single fish wiU 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 coimtless 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 
 
275 
 
 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 strplls 
 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 aU ; 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 dvill, 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 Custom 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 in windows 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 
 
28o 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 wiU 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 httle 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- 
 
283 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 tmseen by the aid of what becomes, as in Disko 
 Troop, a real instinct, for a dearly won livelihood. 
 How can comfortable people ashore reaUse 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 
 stem, 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, Uke 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 unhke 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 
 aU 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, 
 mesmest 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 
 traflic has sprung up, Instead of making the succulent 
 fish look like slabs of dirty wood, high-smeUing 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 2 85 
 
 have in this amazing hardest 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- 
 ueglected colony of ouis has many grievances, but 
 one of the chief is that, situated in the very middle 
 of the most ^^uable 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 \^atever. 
 
 It is a far cry from Newfoondland to the Cape of 
 Good Hope for us, but not for the distribution of fish. 
 For ofE 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 
 Agolhas 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 
 Uttle comparatively of the world's possibihties in the 
 way of feeding mankind have yet been dealt with, and 
 also how prodigally man wastes Nature's bountiful 
 gifts. Here, iu this easily accessible portion of the 
 
286 Cod 
 
 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 through 
 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 
 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 
 
I turn Fisherman Indeed 287 
 
 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 saU 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. 
 
 This habit of theirs resulted in my making an 
 extensive acquaintance with them once — ^the only 
 time in my Ufe that I was ever a * professional ' fisher- 
 man. Whaling, of course, is excluded. 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.' 
 
 * I'll lend you a boat,' he replied, * and charge you 
 half-a-crown a day, which you can pay me out of your 
 earnings.' 
 
 I thanked him, and started; fortunately I had 
 
THE POLLOCK IS MORE ELEGANT IN SHAPE THAN THE 
 CHIEF OF HIS TRIBE. 
 
Varieties of Cod 289 
 
 one may always find them at stated seasons, but wander 
 in fairly large companies wherever food is plentiful. 
 
 Before leaving this subject finall y^ 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, 
 weU-known to all of us, is the Whiting. It is caught 
 in great quantities roimd om: coasts and ofE the shores 
 of Holland. It is essentially a fish to be eaten fresh, 
 the dehcacy 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 dehcacy of flavour 
 and appearance, it is not too much to say that no 
 one who has not tasted it within three hoiurs of its 
 capture can have any idea how delicious it really is. 
 The same thing, of course, apphes practically to all 
 fish, no animal food growing flavoiirless and stale so 
 quickly, but the probabihty is that of aU 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 
 above three pounds weight and averaging about a 
 pound. 
 
 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. 
 
 19 
 
290 Cod 
 
 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. 
 
 But none of the allied members of the Cod 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. In the rivers 
 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 
 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 special 
 remark here. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 THE HERRING 
 
 STRICTLY 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 toU 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 a 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. 
 
 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 
 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 dehcious 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 
 dehcate 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 consTunption 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 Eiurope is greatly Uked, 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 hke 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 incalculable 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 jj^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 
 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 miderstood, 
 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 puisuit. 
 
 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 daim the pre-eminence in antiquity 
 and importance. There was a time when the fisher- 
 men of the Netherlands snppUed 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 unceasrug 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 disr^arded 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 banels 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 
 
2g6 
 
 The Herring 
 
 mighty influence in the moulding of Europe. For 
 upon that apparently insignificant basis arose the 
 Dutch Republic, which successfiolly 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 
 — in 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 
 
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 
 
298 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. 
 
 I remember hearing from some 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 299 
 
 dealt with. By this means the fish are kept from 
 spoiling. 
 
 Apart from those that are consumed locally, 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 in the big 
 casks for the purpose of expressing 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 eilmost 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, 
 cHnging 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 
 rate, 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 nevef 
 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- 
 
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 behef 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 ssmie 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 sHghtly 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 entrapped 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 
 
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, aU 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 
 
3o6 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 Biscay 
 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 mmibers 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 aH, and wiU, 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- 
 
3o8 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 hne 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 skiU, 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 gaUing 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 hedf 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 t5^e 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 coiid 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 
 
 IN 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 
 
A Dangerous Neighbour 31 1 
 
 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, i.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 very 
 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, all 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 very 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 very 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, saimtered 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 opportimity 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 aroimd 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 stud3dng shore life among those cheery amiable 
 darkies. One day four stalwart ebon friends of mine 
 forgathered 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 stem 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. 6cL. 
 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 
 Savaima 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 lins 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 succeed 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 
 
3i6 
 
 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 Iseen 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 3^7 
 
 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 
 whUe), 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 taffraU, and was compelled to hmit 
 my sport to ordinary bottom fishing while still in 
 
3i8 
 
 The Barracouta 
 
 Hobson's Bay or Auckland Harbour, the latter the 
 most prolific place for fishing in that I have ever 
 known. 
 
 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 foUows : — 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 iishing 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 (rimu) 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 
 
"LOOKING DOWN INTO THE LIMPID DEPTHS I SAW 
 SEVERAL BARRACOUTA STEALING ALONG." 
 
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 Nev/ 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 
 
 21 
 
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 guaxded 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 fell-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 aU 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 m57riads 
 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 Barracoota 
 
 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, supplpng 
 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 
 
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 Thyrsitofs 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 
 \'alleys 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 oM^re 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 3deld 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, 
 cavall6, 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 
 of so many different kinds of fish could have gathered 
 in that lonely spot of shallow ocean in the midst of 
 those mighty depths. 
 
THE BIRDS OF THE SEA 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 THE ALBATROSS 
 
 NO bird that flies is more rightfully entitled to the 
 proud name of King of the Sea Air than 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 
 
 331 
 
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 wiU 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 ^^^ Albatross 
 
 square, although I beheve 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 
 
Unsatisfiabic 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, 
 nuiv 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 
 
336 
 
 The Albatross 
 
 been scarcely a bird visible ans^where, 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 miless 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 weU-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 bom. 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 aU 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 myriads of other sea-birds, close at hand. But 
 
 23 
 
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. 
 
 AU 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 MoUymauks or Mallemucks, and 
 Cape Hens. The first is an exceedingly beautiful 
 bird differing scarcely at aU 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 MoIIymauk 339 
 
 I cannot say whether the statement is a fact or not. 
 Personally, 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 albatross with 
 a dirty white beak, exceedingly plentiful in the same 
 habitat as the albatross and moUjmiauk. It has 
 no relieving tint at aU, 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 dingUy 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 hoUow bones 
 of its wings made him excellent pipe-stems. So of 
 course did those of the albatross and moUymauk, 
 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 
 
His Story 34 1 
 
 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 outl5dng 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 ail 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 deUght 
 of it, the unspeakable joy of finding oneself master 
 
THE WATER GREETED ME WITH A ROAR AND A DASH 
 THAT FLUNG ME GASPING BACK UPON THE SAND. 
 
Elementary Education 343 
 
 of his own element ! I circled round and round slowly, 
 my breast swelling with the pride of Ufa, 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 cr5nng 
 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, peiid 
 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 ms^elf. We laimched 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 flufi 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 woiald. The other birds of all kinds saw us 
 drop, and before we had been eating a minute the air 
 was dark overhead with them hmnying 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 '^^^ 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 Uke 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 aU. 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 seemed 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 
 
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, fuU of miserable 
 apprehensions lest that terrible bird should come 
 and destroy me. Had I only known it, or my fears 
 have Eillowed 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 
 gleams in the gloom around me showed where restless 
 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. 
 
 Morning broke in storm, and with heavy driving 
 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 fledgeling 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 shrdl cry 
 bom of hunger, anger, and defiance. 
 
 So I soared aloft and at right angles to the wind, 
 using it in that mysterious unexplainable way tliat 
 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 decapng 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 
 with the m3niads of hungry fish who were seeking 
 their share 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 limging 
 back at the givers, I fought my way into the middle 
 of the tumult and found food, fat ; deUdous, 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 was so. 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 surroimded 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 
 
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 fuU, 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. 
 
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 ray 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 
 
 THE 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 
 
 3S0 
 
Its Restless Vivacity 35 1 
 
 absolute necessity, considering the rapidity with which 
 it must seize its slimy food. Its pliunage 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 bo -y. 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 everjrthing, 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 aU the wide 
 oceans, the Mother Carey's chicken, but it is a close 
 second. And I am 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 cind consequent 
 starvation, for these deep-sea birds are all practically 
 uneatable except when overpowering hunger compels. 
 Their flesh is rank, oQy, 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 molljmiauk, 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. 
 
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 ily 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 roniain. At 
 the first I took them for terns, but renionibotod tlu-ir 
 flight and also their voices, which, instead of being 
 sharp and penetrating like the cry of u torn, 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-inaigin, 
 prying with the fine points of their beaks into crannies, 
 evidently finding much food of some sort, and that 
 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 tlie 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 hitrled 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 
 been 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 
 
356 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. 
 
/^ ^■finK. 
 
 
 
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 A BOS'UM HAS OFTEN KEPT MB PLEASANT COMPANY. 
 
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 obs^rv^ble from the masthead of an ordinaxy 
 
353 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 propellers. 
 
 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 defile- 
 ment is an unsolvable mystery to me. 
 
 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. 
 
My First Offence 359 
 
 And now to return with some relief to my dear, 
 merry, 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 Hi-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 bis 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 and peeped over to see what had become 
 of my late prisoner, and 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 stem 
 latitudes at all, had gradually dwindled away until 
 only one faithful pair of Cape Pigeons remained. 
 
Comforting Companions 3^^ 
 
 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 imless 
 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 
 in getting, by the aid of his good men, a tarpaulin 
 lashed in the mizeu 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 
 stem 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 clapped 
 his hands with glee, and cried shrilly : 
 
 ' Dada, those little birds don't mind 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 without your 
 Father.' 
 
 The man at the wheel passed his oil-skinned 
 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 cheek ; but all three 
 realised the value of the message brought them by 
 the child, entirely independent of their knowledge 
 of the inexorable operation of natvirEd 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 stem 
 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 comer 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 wil-jout 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 sufHcient 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 kiU 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, outstripphig 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 
 
A Strenuous Husband 365 
 
 bitterly cold air beneath, mingled with tne ilying 
 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 deUcious 
 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 mouth, and into it 
 he dropped his prize. 
 
 And thus in the midst of storm and 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 caU the lower animals reaUse 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 motherly patience 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 
 
Family Duties Completed 367 
 
 that hungry wail, except at night, for more than a 
 few minutes at a 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 
 
 PROPERLY speaking, several members of this 
 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, 
 hlting fearlessly under the curve of a mighty Cape 
 Horn sea, or skimming swaUow-like over the glassy 
 surface of the Equatorial Current ; equally at home 
 
 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 httle birds, I 
 
 34 
 
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 on a 
 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 an5rwhere, 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 
 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 
 
An Universal Scent 37 1 
 
 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 deHcate 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 occEision 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 moUusca 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 
 pain, and consequently perfectly happy even while in 
 process of transition into other forms of usefulness. 
 
The 'Fottl* Petrel 373 
 
 For a brief space, and before entering into the 
 famfly 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 Fuhnar 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 agnomen 
 is self-evident ; the bird is really the skunk of the 
 feathered world ; and on the principle, I supptKe, 
 that the more unpleasant the remedy the more certain 
 the cure, the islanders of St. Kilda seize the Uving 
 bird and squeeze from its throat a Uttle oil, a table- 
 spoonful or so, which is considered to be an infalhble 
 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 unrehable but most delightful writer, 
 says, that no bird is of such value to the islanders 
 as this. It suppUes them with oil for their lamps, 
 down for their beds, a dehcacy (!) 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 b^in 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 : 
 ' 111 Tight on ye like a Stinker on a carcase.' Not 
 
374 1*^^ 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 hvelihood. 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 
 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 repetition 
 to go over the small difference 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 
 biographicaUy, 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, ' Stem Fitter.' 
 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 flsang 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 regarded the albatross 
 also, yet I never saw the same sincere reluctance 
 to do them harm as was always evinced towards 
 the Stormy Petrel. 
 
 Once I saw a man, a second mate, wearying for 
 
376 
 
 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 shamefvd 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 WELS 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 joumeyings ; 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 fiat 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 covld hardly move. You see, I had never before 
 moved except in the tiny little hollow where I was 
 
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, fuU 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 fl5^ng 
 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 I felt 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 I 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 ! 
 
 For a 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 
 tiU 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 
 
38o 
 
 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 quiet 
 little nook which had hitherto sheltered me. I did 
 not feel the need of shelter at aU. 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 
 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 
 
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 fuU 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 
 fuU, 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, 
 
I ALWAYS SHARED ANY DELICIOUS MORSEL WITH 
 HER. 
 
My Partner 383 
 
 the power of unwearied flight were now all leading up 
 and accessory to this, the greatest of aU 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 to a 
 new treasure of food floating by ? oh, the rapture 
 of sharing it with her ! And when a httle 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 trsnng 
 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 caimot 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 feed him, to teach him, to launch him in 
 life. And at last I was rewarded, when, finding he 
 was weU able to fish for himself, we two sped northward 
 again to renew our happy joumeyings to and fro upon 
 the lovely sea. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 BOOBIES AND PENGUINS 
 
 UNLIKE any of the other birds of which I have 
 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 hcis 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 
 
 38l( 
 
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 
 h5T)notised into insensibility, and only when it is 
 grasped and its doom sealed does it begin to struggle 
 vainly to escape. 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, after a 
 period of maltreatment, flung overboard, a piece of 
 cruel waste for which there can be no possible excuse. 
 
 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 Booby Farm 389 
 
 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 returned to me, exhibiting to my 
 delighted gaze a large white bird pitifuUy 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, and 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 gietting meat ready that nobody will 
 eat ? ' So there was more waste. And even the eggs, 
 
Awakening Morn 391 
 
 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 deafening 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. 
 
393 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 con- 
 tinually endeavoured to steal. 
 
 In an hour after full day they were practically all 
 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 
 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 endeavour 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 
 gfpjped 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 nearer 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 
 sk5^ward 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 et 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 
 
39^ Boobies and Penguins 
 
 perched along its edge a dozen tiny birds. I glared 
 at them, disbeUeving 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 
 grow weaker and weaker, still fighting vainly against 
 overwhelming odds, and at last in one of his swoopings 
 
A Quaint Sea-Citizen 397 
 
 to leeward that fateil 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 Ufe of a dear friend, and I was scarcely 
 comforted, when, on going into the gloomy forecastle 
 at eight bells, I foimd 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 supphcation to spare his feeble hfe. 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 roimd 
 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 httle 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 Eudyptila 
 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 
 norma] 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 
 
THE PENGUINS GAZED AT HIM FROM THE ROCKY 
 LEDGES. 
 
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 CasteUano 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- 
 covered that they were so fat that they would yield 
 a certain quantity of saleable oil. But I rejoice to say 
 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 
 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- 
 ing, in fact as well as in appearance, a land of 
 death. 
 
 Now in the foregoing I have spoken, it maybe 
 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 ? I do 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 
 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 flippers 
 had all come into play. 
 
 The first time I really knew the Penguin for what 
 he really is was when, making a composite great 
 circle track to New Zealand, we reached latitude 
 
A Ballasted Bird 401 
 
 S^" 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 the 
 Penguin I dare not speak, as I have no personal 
 knowledge, and my imagination recoils at the idea of 
 cultivating the Lares and Penates on the eternally 
 ice-bound shores of Antarctica. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 THE FRIGATE BIRD 
 
 IN 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- 
 
 ♦03 
 
404 The Frigate Bird 
 
 gelder, secure in his knowledge of wnat 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 shaU not 
 appear one single statement based upon the wild 
 romancings of the ancient naturalists, but all verified 
 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 
 if we are to have facts, let them be facts ; if fiction, 
 let us understand and enjoy it as such. The Frigate 
 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 syTion5rm. 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 
 
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, 
 cill 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 mUes 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 mmd 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 
 
406 The Frigate Bird 
 
 Laysan he many times noticed the Frigate Birds 
 snatch a young one from a 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 fuUy 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 of 
 the sea. 
 
 But it is high time that I attempted a description 
 of the Frigate Bird, seeing that, although of so romantic 
 and extraordinary a character, he is little known to 
 the great majority of readers. The body of the Frigate 
 Bird then is, when fuU 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 I do not pretend to fathom, 
 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 
 the breadth of its pinions, and it would indeed be an 
 extraordinary specimen that attained to a 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 wiU 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, 
 
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 young ones or hens 
 I am unable to say. 
 
 Their legs are short and feeble, and although 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 
 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 manoeuvring 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 4C>9 
 
 eye beneath, suddenly descend in a series of graceful 
 curves and snatch the hapless fl3nng-fish as he rises 
 from the sea, is to reaUse 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 hfe 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, Uke 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 
 seen 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 Qyiag. 
 
410 The Frigate Bird 
 
 Poor booby becomes conscious of the presence of 
 her aggressor, as hastdess, fateful, he nears her ; labours 
 hardly, frantically to escape, screams mournfully 
 and dodges. As well try to dodge a lightning flash. 
 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 point of 
 vantage. 
 
 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 is another.instance 
 of human arrogance, which indeed cannot be trusted 
 to interfere in any of Nature's work without doing 
 harm that he cannot again undo. 
 
 One peculiarity attaches to the Frigate Bird which 
 I found 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 
 
A Desert Home 4^^ 
 
 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. 
 
 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 cunosity I 
 felt coxild 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 aU 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 nil 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 by 
 just that much incomplete. 
 
 Another thing I noticed, the pathos of which 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 riiiing 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 4^5 
 
 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. 
 
 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 
 
4i6 The Frigate Bird 
 
 of them would be back again directly, and that she 
 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 
 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 a long 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 
 
 AND 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 as a 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 nutans, 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 
 
4i8 
 
 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. 
 
 I do not believe that it is an5^where 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 dreadfuUy, and that too 
 when so much more power than usual is needed to 
 force the ship through. 
 
 The Gulfweed is, I think, the most beautiful of 
 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 
 nowhere else in the sea. Not only shelter, but food 
 perfectly suited to their immature needs. It simply 
 swarms with life, and a bucket full of weed hauled 
 up almost an57where would 5deld a splendid population 
 for a deep-sea aquarium. 
 
 It is the home too of myriads of crabs, which I 
 
Submarine Forests 4^9 
 
 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 wiU 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 around 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 
 the sea breaking over them in a gale. 
 
 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 
 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 
 away, and subsisting entirely upon what it draws 
 direct from the limpid but bitterly salt waters of 
 the sea. 
 
 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 
 appears as it were spontaneously in any part of the 
 ocean where there is a solid substance to which it can 
 
The Slimy Sea Grass 4^1 
 
 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 Ipng 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, 
 woiold have been to defeat the object for which I 
 was commissioned to write these papers, and which I 
 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 world, I 
 shaU be abundantly repaid. 
 
 THE END 
 
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, no 
 Alopecias vulpes 
 
 the foe of right whales, 45 
 Anchovy, 307 
 Antarctic Circle, the, 49 
 Auckland Island, 84 
 Auks, 397 
 Autobiography of a sperm 
 
 whale, 13-38 
 
 Bacallao, 283 
 Balaena australis, 48-50 
 Balaenoptera sibbaldii 
 
 eous, 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 
 BarthoUnus, 137 
 Basilaurus, 169 
 Basking Shark, 97 
 Bean, Mr., in, 310, 325 
 Becke, Louis, no 
 Beluga, the, 66, 67, 70 
 Benthodesmus Atlanticus, 159 
 Beukelaer, WiUiam, 295 
 Bergen, receipt at, 81 
 Billingsgate, fish at, 278 
 Black Fish, 67, 71 
 Bonito, the, 204, 220 
 
 description, 204 
 
 fishing for, 201;, 209 
 
 size of, 207 
 
 range of, 207, 210 
 
 warm-blooded, 214 
 
 parasites of, 21 J 
 
 as food, 217 
 Boobies, 386-395 
 
 description of, 387 
 
 stupidity of, 388 
 
 anecdotes of, 388 
 
 hunting for, 389 
 
 foes of, 393 
 
 433 
 
424 
 
 Index 
 
 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, no 
 
 'Cachalot,' 318 
 
 Campbell Island, 84 
 
 Cape Hens, 338, 340 
 
 Cape Pigeons, 350, 359-367 
 
 Captains Courageous, 281 
 
 Carlisle Bay, 185 
 
 Cavall6, 327 
 
 Cephalopoda, 127, 132, 134-136 
 
 Cetomimus, 155 
 
 ' Challenger,' the, 146, 154, 163 
 
 Chelone imbricata, 123 
 
 Chelonophagi, 123 
 
 Chiasmodon niger, 153 
 
 Chimaeras, Deep-Sea, 146-164 
 
 Regalecus, 152 
 
 Chiasmodon niger, 153 
 
 Rondeletia, 155 
 
 Cetomimus, 155 
 
 Simenchelys, 155 
 
 Eurypharynx, 155 
 
 Pelicanoides, 156 
 
 Saccopharynx flagellum, 1 56 
 
 Alepisaurus ferox, 156 
 
 Frost-fish, 158 
 
 Benthodesmus Atlanticus, 159 
 
 Lopholatilus chamaeleonticeps, 
 
 159 
 Tile-fish, 159 
 
 Mancalius Uranoscopus, 163 
 Corynolophus Rdnhardtii, 164 
 Melanocetus Johnsonii, 164 
 Liocetus Murrayi, 164 
 
 Chinese fishermen, 123 
 
 Clupea alba, 305 
 
 Clupea pilchardus, 297 
 
 ' Cockney,' anecdote of, 226 
 
 Cod, 274-290 
 fecundity of, 275 
 food of, 276, 280, 286 
 fishing for, 276, 281, 2'82 
 decrease of, 277 
 
 CaA— {continued') 
 
 numbers of, 280 
 
 cod-Uver oil, 284 
 
 varieties of, 287 
 
 size of, 290 
 Corynolophus Reinhardtii, 164 
 Cotyphaena, 67 
 Coryphaena equisetus, 250 
 Coryphaena hippurus, 250 
 Crabs, 418 
 
 Crusades, tribute to, 81 
 Crustacea, tiny, 41 
 Cuttle-fish, food for sperm 
 
 whales, 24 
 
 description of, 127-145 
 
 species of, 132 
 
 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 
 Dcedalus, the, 176 
 Darwin, Charles, on frigate bird, 
 
 408 
 Decapods, description of, 132 
 
 range of, 1 33 
 
 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 
 
 425 
 
 Dolphins — {continued) 
 
 numbers of, 247 
 
 food of, 248 
 
 flesh of, 249 
 
 species of, 250 
 
 life of, 252 
 
 as food, 25; 
 Drevar, Captain, on sea-serpents, 
 
 173 
 Dugong, 73, 74 
 
 Eckineis remora, 273 
 Edinburgh to the Antarctic, 95 
 Elephant Seal. See Sea Ele- 
 phant. 
 Etnysaura serpentina, 121 
 Engraulis, 307 
 Eskimo, hunters of walrus, 81 
 Eudyptila minor, 398 
 Eurypharynx, 155 
 Exocetae, iSj 
 Exocetus nigricans, 228 
 Exocetus 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 
 
 E. 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, 40;, 409 
 
 description of, 406 
 
 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, no 
 
 Globicephalus, 71 
 
 Gloucester, Mass., fishermen of, 
 
 282 
 Goode, Mr., in, 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) 
 
 range of, 294 
 
 curing of, 295 
 
 varieties of, 297-309 
 
 fishing for, 303 
 Hobson's Bay, 144 
 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, J2 
 
 foes of, $2 
 
 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 
 Jefferies, Richard, 9 
 Jelly-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, Mi-., 173 
 Limpets on whales, 57 
 Ling, 275, 288 
 Liocetus Murrayi, 164 
 Lister, Dr., 172 
 Lofoden Islands, 1^8 
 
 Loligo, 132 
 
 ' London,' 262 
 
 Lophoiatilzts chamaehotUiceps. 
 
 159 
 L'Orient, 306 
 Loyalty Islands, 353 
 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 krakeni 
 
 137 
 
 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> 
 
 pent, 176 
 Medusae, 128, 188 
 Megaptera, 167 
 Melanocetus Johnsonii, 164 
 Melville, Herman, quoted, 139 
 Menhaden, 297 
 Michelet, 403, 404 
 Mimulus moschatus, 142 
 
 universality of, scent 
 
 of, 371 
 Moby Dick, quoted, 139 
 MoUymatiks, 338 
 
Index 
 
 427 
 
 Monaco, Prince of, 208 
 Monarch of the Deep, thCi 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, 
 
 279 
 
 cod 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, 67 
 
 Orca gladiator, 43 
 
 Orkney, fossil in, 180 
 
 Oudemans, Professor, on sea- 
 serpents, 168-171 
 
 Owen, Professor, on sea-ser- 
 peijts, 176 
 
 Pajaro nino, 399 
 
 Palmer, Mr., on frigate birds, 
 
 405 
 ' Pauline,' the, 173 
 Paulinus, 137 
 Pelicanoides, 156 
 Penguins, 395 
 
 description of, 397, 398 
 
 Penguins — {eottfitiMfd) 
 
 life of, 398 
 
 range of, 399 
 
 food of, 401 
 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 
 Piscan del Diablo, 98 
 Plesiosaurus, 177 
 Pliny, 123, 136 
 Polar Bear, the, 81 
 Polar Sea, the, 39 
 Pollock, 275, 289 
 Pomfret, 272 
 Pontoppidan, Bishop, on Cepha- 
 
 lopods, 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 
 
 Raiiae, 98, 1 10 
 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 'Wha\e—(c{miiuued) 
 
 food of, 41 
 
 whalebone, 42 
 
 gullet of, 42 
 
 schools of, 43 
 
 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, Sir J., 401 
 Rothschild, Hon. W., 405 
 ' Rotomahana,' 167 
 
 Sable Island, 279 
 
 Saccopharynxflagellum, 156 
 
 Saddle-back Seal, 90 
 
 ' 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, 191, 227, 243 
 Sargasso Weed, 417 
 Sargassum bacdferum, 242 
 Saw-fish, 98, 107 
 Scombridae, 100-103, 128 
 Sea, the temperature of. III 
 
 life at bottom of, 147-164 
 
 Sea Bear, 90 
 
 Sea Cow, the, 73 
 
 Sea Elephant, the, 83-89 
 
 description of, 83 
 
 nose of, 83 
 
 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, 91 
 
 abstinence of, 91 
 
 contests of, 91 
 
 young of, 93 
 
 range of, 94 
 
 enemies of, 94 
 
 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, 97-1 13 
 
 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, ill 
 
 as food, 314 
 Sicily, 184 
 
 Silliman, Professw, on sea- 
 serpents, 172 
 
Index 
 
 429 
 
 Simenchetys, tJJ 
 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, ilj 
 
 life-story of, 115-119 
 Sphyroena, 310 
 Sprat, the, 301 
 
 sold as sardines, 302 
 
 habits of, 303 
 
 fishing for, 303 
 Squalidae, 98 
 Squalus maximus, 180 
 Squid. See also Decapods. 
 
 facts about, 140 
 Stern Fitter, 375 
 Stewart Island, 128 
 Stickleback, 97 
 Sting Ray, 1 10 
 Stinker, 373 
 
 Stork at sea, 396 
 Stormy Petrel, 368 
 
 desciiption 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 
 Thynntes sarda, 217-220 
 Thyrsi tes, 310 
 Thyrsiiops violaceus, 325 
 Tiger Shark, 98 
 Tile-fish, 159-162 
 Toilers of the Sea, 127 
 Tonga, 51 
 Trigla cuculus, 235 
 Trig la hirundo, 235 
 Tropic Bird, 356-358 
 Trout taken to New Zealand, 
 
 321 
 Trumpeter, 327 
 Tunny. See Albacore 
 Turtle, the, 1 14-126 
 
 description of, 114 
 
 range of, 114 
 
 life-story of, 115-119 
 
 egg-laying, 118 
 
 young of, 119 
 
 food of, 121 
 
430 
 
 Index 
 
 Turtle — (continued) 
 fecundity of, 122 
 as food, 123 
 hunting for, 123 
 vitality of, 125 
 
 'Up a Waterspout,' 166 
 
 Vau Vau, 109 
 
 Walrus, the, 77-82 
 
 description 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 
 
 range of, 355 
 
 Whale, the, monarch of the 
 deep, ID 
 
 Whale, Bottle-nose, 66 
 
 Whale, Humpback, 45, 51-58 
 
 Whale, Killer, 43 
 
 Whale, the Right, 39-50 
 
 Whale, Rorquals, 59-72 
 
 Whale, Sperm, autobiography of 
 13-38 
 
 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 
 
 Ztuglodoti, 169 
 
'\^ip 
 
 'CORNELL University. Ithaca, N. K 
 
I I ! !