DANGEROUS FISH.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 98, 23 April 1909, Page 3

DANGEROUS FISH.

> MARINE BAP CHARACTERS

, The idea of fish, constituting a daiTgei- to human life or limb would Wdlv occur to the angler who has never Ist net or line m tropical Waters. Yet even in Britash seas and * rivers there are at least tiro^fish which possess the power to make themselves extremely unpleasant. There fare several instances on record of bathers being .attacked by pike, and-'am old writer (Crull) tells oa giant pike inside whach was found the tody of an infant. Not long .ago a eood-sized retriever, which was swimtog in. the Thames' just above Ohitty's boathouse at Rachmomd, was tackled by a pike, which hit one ot its hind legs so badly as to sever am artery. It was another Thames pike which attacked / that well-knowM. naturalist and , fisherman, Mr Chol-mondeley-Pennell. .He had actually landed the fish, when it sprang from the ground and fixed all its sharp teeth into his leg 'just above the knee. The creature hung so fiercely to its hold that a stick had to be used" to pa-ise it jaws .apart. ; The other British fish which can truly be called dangerous is the conger eel. ■ The experienced sea fisherman, takes care to kill every large conger as soon; as it is brought into the> boat. The conger has not only extraordinary jaw power —it can triturate* shell-' / fish"-and all—but it is also so abominably : 'active that the_ fishetrmani's opinion of it coincides with that held - of the Indian by the Western plainsman. —"No good conger except dead , conger." > ■ ■. A HORRIBLE EEL., Ugly and savage brute'as the conger is, it is a lamb compared with, its relative the green moray of Bermudiain .waters. This great eel is of an unnaturally baillianfb greeinl, and has an eye which is the very epitome of intense and malignant ferocity. It is voracious and savage beyond words. The .negro boatmen have such a holy horror of it that they absolutely refuse to allow a moray into ' the boat. An acquaintance of the writer, a marine officer, fishing in, a ; small boat ..off Bermuda, hooked one of ' these fish'; but as isoon as his boatmen ' saw the .hideous head above the water ihe whipped out his knife and made, to cut the iline. The officer shouted? to him to stop, but had to threaten to ■ throw the man overboard before he would put up his knife. When the great eel was pulled over the side the aiigger went absolutely ashy with fright. As for the moray, no sooner was it in the boat than it doubled upon itself, and v its jaws met with a clash in its own sides, cutting out a ohiunk of white flesh as neatly asia scoop would cut cheese. That was enough for the officer. He picked up a boathook and forked the uncanny creature overboard. Five years ago last June- a green moray, 12ft long, came ashore after a storm at Atlantic City, and was found by a coastguard on the beach. The man took it for a sea serpent, and thousands of holidaymakers came, tp stare at it. It is described in a local paper as having "full red lips and a double row of teeth." THE GENUS SHARK. Of course the great peril and pest of tropical waters is the shark. Never •co Jong as lie lives will the writer forget his first experience of a shark. Years ago he was staying at Ormond, on the Atlantic coast of Florida, the same beach where the great motor speed contests are now held. Early on the first- morning of his laiiuuval he went down to bathe, and, passing through the breakers on the bar, swam out to sea.. Suddenly the familiar triangular fin appeared not 50 yards away, and then the whole ' back of a .shark showed through the broken water. It was not a very large shark, and probably quite.-harm-less, but the writer broke his own and most other existing records back to the-bar. Yet a shark's bark, so to speak, is worse than its bite. There ■has never been a case of a ma/n being taken by a shark on the Atlantic coast of Honda north of Biscayme Bay; and though the gulf fairly I swarms wtih the ugly brutes, it is safe enough to bathe in a crowd and near ■shore. N But the authorities will not , Jet yon dive off the end of a- steamship pier on that coast, and rightly so. Very large sharks are sometimes caught in British waters. ' Five years ago t fishermen from Kimsab found in their nets a blue shark 10ft. 3in. in length, which had inside its stomach three smaller sharks, each .about 4ft. iv length. Occasionally a. blue shark is Keen or caught on: thei Cornish coast; but they are very iranre, and v -certain alarmist- letters which have appeared in London daily papers on 'the subject of sharks and bathers are quite unjustified by facts. The straaigest shark story which ever came to the writer's ears was of a shark that charged a steamer. This wa;s in Queen Charlotte's Sound, and an ac- " Count of the incident appeared in a

Vancouver paper. The captain of the ■steamer, which was a small craft of only 50 tons or so, saw the shark on the surface of the port bow, and could mot resist the temptation of taking a shot at it with his rifle. He hit his mark, whereupon the monster — said to have been fully 20 feet in length—■deliberately charged the steamer. The boat quivered from stem to stern, amd the captain^ said afterwards that it was liko striking a rock. After this display of temper Master Shark had had enough of it, and sam.k out of sight.

BARRACOUTA AND DEVIL-FISH. A fish'that has a thoroughly bad name in West Indian waters and all along the shores of the Mexican. Gulf is the banraeouta. Certainly the barraoouta is an unpleasant looking customer. He is long and narrow, shaped like a torpedo, blue-black above and grey below, and he can swim at most amazing speed. Where he lives he is known as the devil fish, a name common to all marine bad characters. The negroes have a perfect horror of the bairraoouta, which, they aver, will attack bathers and inflict upon them a mutilation impossible to describe.. But whether there is any ground of truth in this accusation., which is also .made againtst a fresh water fish found in. the Amazon, the writer has never been able to ascertain. Another so-called devil-fish which is common on American coasts from 30deg. north latitude to about the same degree south of the line, is the giant ray. This fish looks very like a skate, but grows to an enormous size. It lies on the sea. bottom, covering square yards of coral sand, and if attacked may prove not only nasty, but most dangerous. It is said to use its mouth like a shark, but its most unpleasaaiifc weapon is the toothed .spear in its tail. Fishermea aver that it is able to. drive this jagged lance right through a man's thigh. Such a wound' is extremely poisonous, and almost invariably fatal. In the southern part' of the Gulf of Mexico, specimens of the giant ray have been killed up to. 18ft. across. The ray has two horns,.one on i-ach side of its eyes, the latter being green, hideous, and cruel beyond compare. A curious habit of this fish is to break water like a whale, falling with a thunderous splash which is heard Tor miles. ' KILLED BY A FLYING FISH. Some years ago a most strange' case of a fatal accident caused by a fish wais reported in the British Medical Journal by Dr. Osborne Browne, of British Honduras. A boy went out/to fish at the island called Grass Caye, when a fish known as the long-guard rose from the water and struck him en the bare chest, causing a punctured would which proved fatal. Such an occurrence would seem almost incredible, but full details are given by Dr. Browne. The fish was 2ft. 3m. in length, and weighed lib 9oz. It had a sharp snout 2im. long. The long-guard has the power of rising from the water and flying with great velocity for many yards. Cases were previously known of specimens passing through, the sail of a boat and even penetrating the side, but this was the first instance on record of human life being lost through the long-guard's agency. A TERROR OF THE SEAS. In the British Museum may be seen . a specimen of a heavy oaken plank, , once part- of the bottom of a stout yes- , sel, which had been pierced by the

sword of a swordfish. The weapon remains fast fixed in the timber. Along the Atlantic coast of the United States swordfish are hunted both for their flesh, which is palatable, amd also in order to protect- the schools, ot blue fish and mackerel which they ravage. Usually a swordfish when harpooned swims "straight away, just-as a whale would do; but sometimes a large .specimen will turn nasty and attack tlie boat. As its speed is simply tremendous, exceeding even that ot «a dolphin, the impact of half a ton or more of bone and muscle will drive^the ■oireat beak through almost- amy timber, amd bad accidents are .sometimes heaircL of. There used to be an elderly pensioner at Old Point Comfort, Virginia, who had lost a leg through, a wouind received when engaged in .sword-fishing. Whenever the sword is driven through a boat the men Mir variably do their best to break it ott ; for it is an odd fact that, once deprived of its natural weapon, one sword-fish instantly loses all its natural savagery and becomes harmless as a herring. Sword-fish hunters say that there is a natural enmity between the sword-fish amd the .shark, amd tell stories of desperate duels between the two antagonists. The superior agility of the former makes up for the greater power and weight of the shark.

UNCANNY MONSTERS

Of all sea monsters that which' possess the most powerful fascination tor tho general reader is undoubtedly the •octopus! Some of the finest descriptions ever penaied iai nation have ■related to duels between man and this horrible denizen of the trock caverns on the sea bottom. Victor Hugo was the first great novelist to describe a duel of any kind, and .another very fine description of a similar contest is to be found in a 'novel by a writer whose work is familiar to readers or Chambers's Journal— -namely' 'Barbe of Gramde Bayou," by John Oxemhami. Ghastly and blood-curdling as these adventures read, fiction in this case falls fan- behind fact. About 11 years ago—it was m September, 1897 — there was a note in Chamber's Jouamal concerning the remains of a dead octopus thrown up by the sea upon the Atlantic beach near. St. Augustine, Florida. These .remains, which were only a part of the living animal, weighed mo less than six toius, or, say, twice the weight of an average fullgrown elephant. The living ainimal must have had arms 72i:t. in length, which means that the creature, when alive, was able to stretch 150 ft. We jeer at newspaper descriptions of seaserpents. Could the most gruesome conception of the brain, of exerted' journalist exceed in size or horror such a monster of the deep as this? There are several . varieties of the cephalopoda, from the common octopus, which is frequently caught off the Cornish coast, and of which there are some fine specimens .in the Marine Laboratory at Plymouth, up to the octopus gig-anteus, of which the mass washed ashore in Florida was a por-. tiioni. They .are found in all .seas except the far Arctic, and they need mot be very large to be dangerous to mam. There, are some in Leghorn Hairbouir with arms not more than 4ft. to sft. •long, which yet inspire the utmost terror " among the fishermen. >In November, 1879, -a Government diver at work in the tideway of the_ River Moyme, near Melbourne, was seized by an octopus of similar dimemisioins', which fixed its horrible cuplike suckers on the back of his bare right hand amd .round his arm. For twenty minutes he hammered the loathsome brute with am iron : bar which he managed to* seize in his left haind; but it was .mot umtil he had almost'cut the ■ creature to pieces that it relaxed its grip, and he and it were pulled to the surface together. THE TRUE DEVIL FISH. Some of the largest of these true devil fish are found ground the rocky areas' of Newfoundland. In. the museum of St. John's is a portiomof am arm of ome of these monsters which in October, 1873, attacked two fishermen off Great Belle Isilamd in Conception, Bay. The men saw the creature floating on the surface isome distance, and, taking it for wreckage, rowed up. When they caught sight of its huge glassy eyes st.ar.ing up at them they were almost paralysed with fright: and, before they could turm, two rope-like arms fell -across their boat, and completely enveloped it. With the courage of despair, one man grasped a hatchet and slashed furiously at the tentacles. He cut them both through; and the creature, ejecting such a quantity of ink as to blacken- the water for many yards, around, samk back into the depths. The piece that was preserved measured 19 feet in length, aaid it is estimated that it was <sdx feet off at least from the body. In April, 1899, a terrible battle between* mam amd devil fish was waged in Neah Bay, on the western coast, of the United States. A number of Tattosh Indians _ were out in their oamoes fishing „ with harpooms, wihem one caught .sight of /what he took to be a small whale .rising 'and falling on the waves. The largest canoe was hurried forward; but as it approached the creature the harpooner uttered a cry of terror. "Big devil fish," he yelled, and the crew backed with all their might. Too late! Next instamt the immiense tentacles of the sea monster grasped their craft, and, though it was a 40-feet canoe, cracked- it like

an egg-shell. All five occupant® were flung into the sea, and as th«y fell two were' grasped by the living ropes. One was caught round the throat and killed almost instantly; the second was pulled underneath and drowned. At this the other Indians paddled up. and a shower of lances were driven into the bleated, jelly-like body of the devil-fish- Between them they killed it and towed it ashore, where it was photographed by a, local naturalist-, Mr Frederick Edwards. From tip to tip of its outstretched arms • this -nightmare of tlia deep measured 56 feet, and" its weight was 25001b5. On each arm were 350 suckers, rummimg from the size of a saucer down to a mere pin-point. According to Mr Bullen, the squid ot cuttle-fish is the principal food of the sperm whale. But apparently the game is mot always one-sided. The same authority relates a thrilling -incident of a huge sperm whale rolling on the imooinlit surface of the sea enveloped in the mighty coils of am octopus far larger tha.n any of which even fragments have yet been handled by mam.—T. C. Bridge, in ■ Chambers'® Journal.