SOME CURIOUS FISHES
Now and again that queer fish called the Sea-horse is found by our coast; a little brown fish, with bluish-white spots and lines on the sides and tail. But Sea-horses are common in warmer seas, in the banks of seaweed where they love to dwell. You would never guess that these curious creatures were fish.
The shape of the head, and the curved neck, remind you of a horse. It is also rather like the knight of the chess-board; or it may make you think of the dragon of the fable; but, really, the Sea-horse is like nothing on the earth, or in the waters. Nature has given it a special pattern of its own.
Sea-horses use their twisty tails as monkeys do, clinging to the seaweed with them. They swim along slowly, in an upright position. Every now and then they seem to be falling forward on their noses, and pull themselves up again, only to begin falling a moment after. It is fun to see them play hide-and-seek among the weed in an aquarium. Some Sea-horses are like floating scraps of torn weed; this, of course, hides them from the eyes of enemies.
As if this were not strange enough, he surprises us again. Mr. Sea-horse turns himself into a living nursery. He carries the eggs about with him, in a special pouch of skin! You will remember that the Pipe-fish also carries the eggs in his pocket, as it were. So you will not be surprised to hear that these two quaint fish belong to the same family.
We will leave the funny little Sea-horse, and look at a very different fish--the Sunfish. This remarkable fish often reaches a good size; even near our coast big ones are caught now and again, and in warmer seas, where they are often killed for the sake of the oil they contain, big fellows of half a ton are quite common.
This Sunfish has a peculiar shape. It looks as if it had once been an immense fish of the usual fish shape, but someone cut off the head and shoulders, and placed a short fin where the rest of the body had been. Above and below there is a long pointed fin. The mouth is very small, and has no real teeth; so the Sunfish lives on small prey, such as the young of other fish, or small shell-fish.
Far away from land these strange Sunfish are met with, asleep near the surface, with the back fin showing above water. They roll along lazily, not unlike big cart-wheels. The top and bottom fins are for balancing and guiding the body, which is moved forward by the fin which frills the back part of this odd fish.
Being slow and clumsy, the Angler-fish cannot chase his prey, so gets his dinner by fraud. Nature has given him a fishing line and a bait! He has long spines on his head, so beautifully joined to the bones of the head that they can wave to and fro very easily. At the tip of the front spine there is a loose, shining strip of skin--that is the bait. Now, all anglers know how a fish is lured by a shining bait. The Angler-fish seems to know this too. He buries himself in the wet mud and sand at the bottom of the sea. Then he waves the long spine, so that the shining tip glistens as it shakes in the water, until a fish swims up to see what it is all about. A sudden snap, and that inquisitive fish is inside a huge, toad-like mouth, well furnished with rows of sharp teeth. The Angler-fish puts his catch in his pocket, and begins fishing again, for he is never satisfied. His pocket is a loose bag of skin in the throat. This bag is always examined by fishermen who capture the Angler, for it may contain a nice big Plaice or Sole, worth money in the market.
There are Angler-fishes in every ocean, and some live in the very deepest parts. In those black depths the little waving "bait" would not be seen. So it is made to shine, like a bluish spark moving to and fro over the cold black slime of the sea-bed.
Down in those awful deeps it is for ever dark, and freezing cold, There is no day or night, summer or winter. No plants can live there. Yet in that strange, still world there are numbers of living things, though we know very little about them. There are weird Crabs, blind Lobsters, and fish terrors such as are never seen elsewhere.
In that darkness you would think that eyes would be of no use, but some of the deep-sea fish have great black owl-like eyes. Others are quite blind, or have eyes like pin-points. Some of them make their own light, glowing with rows of little lamps on their bodies, each like the lamp of the glow-worm of our country lanes. Blue, red, and green these lights are, but no one can tell you their real use, or why they are so coloured. The blind fish feel their way with long feelers, stretched out like the threads of a web.
As there are no plants down there, these strange fish must live mostly on one another! And here is a puzzle, for some of them have great big bodies, but small heads and tiny mouths; others have bodies like ribbons, but large heads and huge mouths, and some are such gluttons that they swallow fish twice their own size! This sounds absurd, but it is true. Their mouths gape open like trap-doors, and their stomachs are made to stretch, to hold their huge meals! There are other terrors of the deep with such big teeth that they cannot shut their mouths. No doubt the sea holds yet other weird fish which no man has seen.
EXERCISES
1. In what ways is the Sea-horse so different from most other fish? 2. In what ways are the Sea-horse and Pipe-fish alike? 3. How does the Angler-fish catch its prey? 4. Mention a few strange facts about the deep-sea fish.