WOLVES OF THE WATERS.

Te Aroha News, Volume XLI, Issue 6597, 9 May 1925, Page 6

WOLVES OF THE WATERS.

FISH THAT ANGLERS HATE TO HOOK

When talk turns upon dangerous fish the first that one thinks of is the shark.

The shark is a greedy brute, but a fearful coward, and not to be mentioned in the same breath with such a creature as the pirai or the barracouta. The pirai is quite a small fish, but the wolf of the waters. It is found in many rivers in South America, and hunts in packs. Woe betide a swimmer who enters water infested by the pirai! He is instantly attacked and literally torn to pices. The long slender barracouta haunts the reefs of the Gulf of Mexico. Swift and as savage as a fiend, it hurls itself upon a swimmer and goes straight for a vital part. Only a year ago a beautiful girl, daughter of wealthy parents, was killed by one of these terrible brutes off the Florida coast.

The green moray is a horror. It is like a great conger eel, but grass green in colour. Negroes are so terrified of this creature that, if they hook one, as soon as they see it on the surface they cut the line. The sting-ray is another terror of the seas. Its long, whip-like tail is provided with a barbed spike, which it uses with deadly effect. But the fiercest of all sea creatures is a small whale known as the “killer,” which is common in the Antarctic. It lives principally upon seals, and has such terrible teeth that it can bite up a 2001 b seal as we would an apple. If it sees a man on a floe it will swim under the ice and strike up in a furious effort to reach him.