Their mode of escape interested me
greatly, and I passed hours watching them. They would dart away, each
in a different direction, so that the wolf of the sea, the shark,
pursuing one, would be led away from the others; then after a while
they would all return and rendezvous under one side or the other of
the sloop. Twice their pursuers were diverted by a tin pan, which I
towed astern of the sloop, and which was mistaken for a bright fish;
and while turning, in the peculiar way that sharks have when about to
devour their prey, I shot them through the head.
Their precarious life seemed to concern the yellowtails very little,
if at all. All living beings, without doubt, are afraid of death.
Nevertheless, some of the species I saw huddle together as though they
knew they were created for the larger fishes, and wished to give the
least possible trouble to their captors. I have seen, on the other
hand, whales swimming in a circle around a school of herrings, and
with mighty exertion "bunching" them together in a whirlpool set in
motion by their flukes, and when the small fry were all whirled nicely
together, one or the other of the leviathans, lunging through the
center with open jaws, take in a boat-load or so at a single mouthful.
Off the Cape of Good Hope I saw schools of sardines or other small
fish being treated in this way by great numbers of cavally-fish. There
was not the slightest chance of escape for the sardines, while the
cavally circled round and round, feeding from the edge of the mass.
Pages:
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70