The mighty deep

OF fishes which are remarkable for beauty names might be mentioned by the hundred; alike of food-fishes, of powerful and fierce-tempered kinds, and of those which may be described as purely ornamental. Not all are graceful in shape; but vast numbers are exquisite in colouring, especially when first drawn from the water. As they gasp out their lives, the brilliant tinting fades.

Among harmless and lovely kinds, perhaps not many could vie with the small radiant creatures of Coral-reefs, described by many a traveller in terms which tell of a lack of sufficient variety in adjectives. But words in these cases convey a dim impression of the reality. Fish-beauty must be seen, and seen at its best, to be appreciated.

Among curiosities of Fish-existence, too many to name, a few may be cited in passing.

Flying-fishes, with their blue bodies and wing-like fins of silver, are well known to voyagers.

They rise from the water with a vigorous upward spring, which will bear them to a height of fifteen feet or more above the surface; and there they skim lightly along, with apparently thorough enjoyment. Sometimes thousands are seen at once, all leaping out of their native element, and taking to the air for a variety.

Often they do this to escape from a pursuing foe below; but the plan is not always successful, since they have other enemies above. Many a flying-fish in its aerial career is snapped up by a hungry gull.

One uncouth specimen is the “Frog-fish,” known also as the “Fishing-frog” or “Goose-fish,”—a flat thick rounded creature, with a cocked-up tail, an enormous mouth nearly as wide as its whole body, and knowing eyes. It bears a certain resemblance to a frog.

Many instances are related of fishes “imitating” or “copying”—to use very inadequate terms—different land animals. The Bat-fish, for example, bears a curious likeness to a Bat. The Snipe-fish might be mistaken for first cousin to a Snipe.

There is also the Pelican-fish, an inhabitant of deep-water. It has a mouth of portentous dimensions, with a huge pelican-like pouch hanging loosely below. Little is known of its habits; but it is supposed to swim about near the ocean-bed, with its enormous jaws extended in a stereotyped yawn, taking food in a vast and wholesale fashion.

Another oddity, known as the Spook, though not interesting in its ways, has a most “bizarre” look. Its body is long and winding, almost like that of an eel; its fins are large; its eyes are big; and, judging from its picture, its head seems to be a cross between that of a fish and that of a quadruped.

Among innumerable fish gormandisers one particular specimen carries off the palm, and might win the first prize in a world-wide competition for excellence in voracity.

The Black Swallower, most appropriately named, manages, at least now and then, to accomplish the rare feat of swallowing a morsel many times larger than itself. It is a fish of slender make; but after such a meal the slenderness disappears.

It seizes upon a fish, perhaps six or eight times as large as its own body, and “gradually climbs over it with its jaws”—a truly marvellous exploit! Its mouth and stomach stretch elastically during this process, till the whole of the large fish has passed inside the little fish, and a vast pouch hangs below, filled with the meal just taken. This bag is the distended stomach.

But the tale carries its own moral. The greediness of the fish—and apparently it is a case of individual greediness, though it springs from a family tendency—is punished as it deserves by death. As the swallowed “mouthful” decomposes, it loads the bag with gases, like an inflated balloon; and like a balloon the stomach acts, bearing the unhappy victim to the sea-surface, where it floats wrong way up. A sufficiently tragic ending!

A stout-built animal is the Wolf-fish, varying in length from three to seven feet; and in his ways a veritable “wild beast,” powerful and savage, with strong jaws, teeth fashioned like those of a tiger, a vicious temper, and a ferocious scowl. An abnormal appetite too is his, though hardly equal to that of the Black Swallower. In Maine these brutes have been known to attack fiercely human beings wading in the sea at low tide.

Sometimes the above is called also the “Sea Cat-fish;” but true Cat-fishes belong to quite another family; and they can hardly be described as more desirable acquaintances. With their solemn Grimalkin-like expression, their love of fighting, their sharp serrated spines, with which they can give most painful wounds, the Cat of the Ocean is not likely to be transformed into a domestic pet, for at least some time to come.

These two last quarrelsome creatures may lead us from “interesting” specimens of Fish-life to those which have been roughly classed above as “Fishes of Prey.”

Prominent among the latter stands the dreaded Shark. In common parlance we speak of a shark as a fish. Yet scientifically the description is incorrect. Sharks and Skates are now looked upon as apart from Fishes proper, being described rather as “Fish-like Vertebrates,”—not true fishes.

One very marked difference is found in the numbers of their young. With true fishes, as already shown, eggs are produced in enormous quantities. But with sharks and skates, only one or two or at most a very few young ones are brought into existence at a time, as with higher animals.

If among wild beasts of the Ocean cuttlefishes represent tigers, then perhaps we may say that sharks represent lions or panthers. But the reputed nobility of the lion is never found in sharks.

Fearsome creatures they are; often huge in size, long-shaped, flat-tailed, with cavernous mouths, cruel teeth, immense strength, and bloodthirsty dispositions. Cannibals too, since they feed largely on lesser fishes. To the bigger kinds a human being is merely a tasty morsel, which may be disposed of in two snaps and a couple of gulps.

Though exclusively inhabitants of the salt sea, they sometimes chase their prey into a river, putting up with fresh water for the nonce.

Sharks are found nearly all over the world, but much more abundantly in hot climates. Their numbers gradually diminish, farther and farther from the equator. In tropical waters they are often present in overwhelming multitudes; and a man who should venture to bathe in such parts, would be as a scrap of bread flung to a horde of hungry little fishes. In less than a minute nothing of him would remain.

Off Kurrachee, where the catching of them is systematically carried on, about forty thousand are slain every year. This is for the sake of their fins, from which gelatine is obtained for the Chinese. That so many are killed, as a regular thing, says much with respect to the vast hordes which are not killed.

Of small shallow-water sharks, the most widely known are varieties of Dog-fishes. Though not large enough to be a terror to man, they are an endless trouble to fishermen, destroying great numbers of captured fish in the nets, and biting off the hooks from fishing-lines.

Among larger species, one kind found in the North Atlantic is the huge mild-mannered Basking Shark, which at times lies long and lazily close to the surface of the water, in company with a school of comrades. Its teeth are unimportant, and it feeds on smaller creatures, not attempting to include man among its eatables. But since it often has a length of thirty feet, and, like most sluggish natures, is capable of being roused, it becomes dangerous when excited. A blow of its tail may easily smash in the side of a whaling boat.

The largest of these creatures is the vast Whale-shark, belonging to the Indo-Pacific Seas, sometimes over fifty feet in length, and stated even to reach seventy feet.

However, if accounts be correct, this giant is much less of an enemy to the whale than the Greenland Shark. In the fashion of some savage nations, the latter feeds deliberately upon the live whale, biting raw steaks at pleasure from the worried leviathan—“scooping and gorging lump after lump,” so long as it feels “dispoged.”

The Greenland Shark is credited with feeling no pain, and it is extremely difficult to kill, as the unfortunate whale attacked by it finds to his cost.

Worse than all, so far as human beings are concerned, are the famous Man-eating Sharks of tropical waters, which occasionally, but not very often, find their way to colder latitudes.

Among them, the Great Blue Shark, from fifteen to twenty-five feet long, and the awful White Shark, known sometimes to reach a length of thirty-seven feet, have an undesirable pre-eminence.

These monsters are furnished with teeth, the reverse of “unimportant.” In shape they are generally triangular, serrated, and sharply pointed. In arrangement they occupy rows, the foremost only of which is in actual use. Other rows are folded back and kept in reserve, to be brought forward when required. Thus a shark is never without a ready supply of his formidable weapons.

White sharks are much given to keeping in the wake of ocean-ships, on the look-out for scraps thrown overboard. One such persistent follower having been killed, an inventory was made of the contents of its stomach, as follows—“A tin can, a number of mutton bones, the hinder quarters of a pig, the head and forequarters of a bull-dog, and other and smaller things, as the auction-bill says, too numerous to mention.”[11]

Closely related to the Sharks are those savage creatures known as Rays or Skates.

The larger number of them live usually at the bottom of the sea, in somewhat shallow waters, lying on the ocean-floor, or swimming about just above it. Thus they do not so often come into contact with man as do sharks. But it is want of opportunity, not want of will, which keeps them from doing harm. When they have a chance they seldom fail to use it.

Among different branches of the “Ray” division is found the tropical Saw-fish, with its long sharp teeth-laden snout, ever ready to fight the whale. In youth the saw-fish has a strong resemblance to a shark.

Then there are the Sting-rays, with barbed spines, a mere touch from which causes a man terrible suffering, as if from poison; while a severe sting may end in death. These are found in South America.

There is also the family of Torpedo Rays, quite distinct from the better-known South American Electric Eel, but able to administer electric shocks strong enough to render a man for the time helpless. They are found in many waters—large creatures, rounded in shape, smooth-bodied, thick, with longish tails.

Worst of all are the huge ungainly Eagle-Rays and Sea-devils, with their powerful grinding teeth. These grow to an enormous size; and the larger ones are quite capable of upsetting a big boat. Nor would they hesitate so to do, if attacked.

One such creature was said to be fifteen feet in breadth, with a tail several feet long; another to have been twenty feet in length; another to have been three or four feet in thickness; another to have weighed well over twelve hundred pounds; another to have needed fourteen oxen to drag its dead body. They sometimes share with Cuttlefish the distinction of being called “Devil-fishes.”

These monstrosities are found off Barbadoes, off Jamaica, and in the tropical waters of the Atlantic and Pacific.

A particularly vicious kind hovers about the Pearl Fisheries near Panama, to the terror of the divers. The creature is reported to fold its vast “wings” about any unfortunate man within reach, and then to devour him. This answers to the usual method of ground-rays in feeding. They glide over the object they wish to devour, settle down upon it, hold it fast by the grip of a broad and heavy body, and deliberately tear it to pieces.