"PELORUS JACK."

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVI, Issue 64, 21 July 1913, Page 2

"PELORUS JACK."

"TRAINING A SUCCESvSOR

The "New York Times" of a raCent date lias the latest story ahout "Pelorus Jack." The following is the (article, which is headed, "Peiorus Jack Very Frail" :—"Dr. Arthur Brttoo Hai'land, of Hobart, Tasmania, who sailed for London yesterday,q saic that when ho left home, six weeks ago, 'Peiorus Jack,' the famous pilot fish in Cook Strait, who has guidet. ships through the French Pass foi %iriy odd years, was getting verj weak, and might pa.ss away at any time now. 'When I went through the' pas»>about three months ago, on one of ' "White Star' 'steamships,' he tsaid, 'old "Peiorus Jack" came off 'to us accompanied by "Herbert," the shovel-nosed grampus he has bee;] ■training to succeed him as pilot. Tlu' s .sporty old fi,sh wig-wagged feebly witlrhis tail to the captain on tire bridge ;...and then slowly made for the ■shore, leaving^his pupil in eharge.

"I heard the report of the navaJ f surgeon at Wellington feat 'Pelftruf 'Jack' was suffering from hay fever. but, from what I can judge of the 1 symptoms given in the diagnosis, it is more likely to bo neuritis and lumbago. s '*Of course, 'Herbert' can do the work all right, as far as the piloting of the steamers through the French Pass is concerntd, but ho is not sc refined as "Peiorus Jack' "by any means. If a captain was cautious and somewhat slow in following; the l > old pilot through the narrows, 'Jackf. would go astern with his tail like a propeller, and wait for tho steamer to come ahead again, but 'Herbert' just' blows three spouts of water as a signal to tho captain, and then goes ahead, fullspeed, not earing whether the ship is following him or not. 'Pe-' locus Jack' was certainly the most gentlemanly fish T have ever met, and T am afraid that we shall never see his like again in Australian or New Zealand waters, now that we have a Commonwealth Government. He is the last of the finny aristocracy of the Antipodes.'''