THE SILENT WARFARE OF THE SUBMARINE WORLD.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIX, Issue 11557, 19 April 1898, Page 2

THE SILENT WARFARE OF THE SUBMARINE WORLD.

(Spectator.) Placid and reposeful, tempest-tossed or current-whirled, the unchangeable yet unresting surface of the ocean reveals to the voyager no inkling of what is going on, below its mobile mask, and even when furrowed deepest by the mighty but invisible ploughshare of the storm, how slight is the effect felt twenty feet deep. Yet in those soundless abysses of shade beneath the waves a war is being incessantly waged which knows no truce—ruthless, unending and universal. On earth the struggle for existence is a terrible one, exciting all our sympathies when we witness its pitilessness, being ourselves, by some happy accident, outside the arena. Nature, “ted in tooth and claw,” weeding put the unfit by the opera* tioa of her inexorable laws, raises many a doubting question in. gentle souls as to why all this suffering should be necessary. They see but a portion of the reversed pattern woven by the eternal looms/ 1 But the fauna of the land are.by an enormous majority herbivorous, mild in their habits, and TERRIFIED AT THE SIGHT OF BLOOD. Even the carnivora, fierce and ravenous as are their instincts, do not devour one another except in a few insignificant and abnormal cases, such as wolves driven mad by starvation. Much less do they eat their own offspring, although there are many instances of this hideous appetite among the herbivores, which are familiar to most of ua. In striking contrast to these conditions, the tribes of ocean are all devourets of each other, , and with the exception of the mammalia and the sharks, make no distinction in favour of their own fruit. One single instance among the inhabitants of the sea furnishes us with a variation. The halicone, dngong, or manatee (Sirenia), now nearly extinct, are without doubt eaters of herbage only. This they gather along the shores whose waters are their habitat, or cull from the shallow sea bottoms. For all the rest they are mutually . dependent upon each other’s flesh for life/iinscrupulous, unsatisfied and vigorous beyond belief. “vis VIOTIS” IB THEIR MOTTO,' : U and the absence of all other food their sole and sufficient excuse. Viewed dispassionately, this law of interdependence direct is a beneficent one in spite of its apparent cruelty. Vast as is the sea, the fecundity of most of its denizens is well known to be so great that without effective checks always in operation it must rapidly become putrid and pestilential from the immense accumulation of decaying animal matter. As things are, the life of a fish from first to last is a series of miraculous escapes. As ova, their enemies are so numerous, even their own parents greedily devouring the quickening spawn, that it is hard to understand how any are overlooked and allowed to become fish. Yet as hy, after providing food for countless hordes of hungry foes, they are still sufficiently numerous to impress the imagination as being in number like the sands of the sea. And so, always being devoured by millions, they progress towards maturity, at which perhaps one billionth of those deposited as ova arrive. This infinitesimal remnant is a mighty host, requiring such supplies of living organisms for its daily food as would make an astronomer dizzy to enumerate. And every one is fat and vigorous; must be, since none but the fittest can havesurvived. Their glittering myriads move in mysteriously ordered march along regular routes, still furnishing food for

AN ESCORT OP INSATIABLE MONSTERS ( such as whales, sharks, &e.; while legions of sea-fowl above descend and clamorously take their tiny toll. In due season they arrive within the range of man. He spreads his nets and loads his vessels, but all his spoils, however great they may appear to him, are but the crumbs of the feast, the skimmings of the pot. * * ■* But see the grampus hurl himself like some flying elephant into the “brown” of a school of scared porpoises. In vain do they flee at headlong speed any whither. The enemy pursues, he overtakes, he swallows at a gulp, even as do his victims the lesser creatures upon which they fatten iu their turn. So with the huge mackerel, which, seamen call the albacore, although as far as one can see there is no difference between him and the tunny of the Mediterranean but in size. What havoc he makes among a school of his congeners the bonito! A hungry lion leaping into the midst of a flock of deer will seize one, and retire to devour it quietly. But this monster clashes his -jaws continually as he rushes to and fro among the panic-stricken hosts, scattering their palpitating fragments around him in showers. In like manner do his victims play the destroyers’ part in their turn. Yonder flight of silvery creatures, whose myriads cast a dense shade over the bright sea, are fleeing for life, for beneath them, agape for their inevitable return, are THE SERRIED RANKS OP THEIR RAVENOUS PURSUERS. Birds intercept the aerial course of the fugitives, who are in evil case indeed, whithersoever they flee. But descending the scale, we shall find the persecuted Exoeeta also on the warpath, in their thousands, after still smaller prey. Time would fail to tell of the ravages of the swordfish, also a mackerel of great size and ferocity, who launches himself, torpedolike, at the bulky whale, the -scavengershark, or a comrade, with strict impair tiality. And of the “ killer ” whale, eater of the tongue only of the mysticetus ■ the thresher-shark, aider and abettor of the killer; or the sawfish, who disembowels hia prey, that his feeble teeth may have tender food. Their warfare knows no, armistice; they live but to eat and be .eaten in their turn, and, as to eat they musfc fight. the battle rages evermore. The dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty, but they are peaceful compared with the dark places of the sea.