The winners in life's race

by Arabella B. Buckley

Salmon have been caught in the rivers with lampreys hanging to them, and where the mouth has been the salmon’s flesh is rasped away, though he does not seem much to mind it.

Lastly, the lamprey has a peculiar way of breathing. He has seven little holes on each side of his head, reminding us of the slits in the worm’s throat and those hidden under the skin of the lancelet, and behind these holes are seven little pouches lined with blood-vessels, which take up air out of the water. These pouches are all separate, but they open by one tube into his throat. When the lamprey is swimming about it is possible that he may gulp water in at his mouth and send it out at the slits. But when he is clinging to anything he certainly sends water both in and out at the slits, so that he can still breathe, though his mouth is otherwise occupied.

And now, what is the history of his life? For three years he lives as a stupid little creature, with a toothless mouth surrounded by feelers, and tiny eyes covered over with skin, and he is so unlike a lamprey that for a long time naturalists thought he was a different animal and called him Ammocœtes. But at the end of the three years he changes his shape, and then he is as bright and intelligent as he was dull and heavy before. His one thought is to find a mate and help her to cover up her eggs. To do this a number of lampreys find their way up the river and set to work. Sometimes one pair go alone, sometimes several together, and they twirl round and round so as to make a hole in the sand, lifting even heavy stones out with their mouths if they come in the way. Then they shed the spawn into the hole, where it is soon covered with sand and mud, to lie till it is safely hatched, and when this is done the marine lampreys swim out to sea to feed on the numberless small creatures in it, or to fasten upon some unfortunate fish.

But there are round-mouthed fishes even more greedy than these. It is not only among the lower forms of life that some creatures, such as worms, which are driven from the outer world, find a refuge inside other animals. But here again we meet with the same thing, for those relations of the lampreys, the hags or borers, which we mentioned above, use their sharp teeth to bore their way into other fish so as to feed upon them. These greedy little creatures actually drill holes in the flesh of the cod or haddock and other fish, and eat out the inside of their bodies, so that a haddock has been found with nothing but the skin and skeleton remaining while six fat hags lay comfortably inside.

So the round-mouthed fishes, feeble though they are, hold their own in the world. How long ago it is since they first began the battle of life we shall probably never know for certain; but if some little horny teeth[9] found in very ancient rocks belong to their ancestors, they were most likely among the first backboned animals on our globe. At any rate they are very interesting to us now, for they have wandered far away from the true fishes, and give us a glimpse of some of the strange by-paths which the backboned animals have followed in order to win for themselves a place in the race for life.

THE ANCIENT FISH & THEIR HUGE RIVAL

Note.—For description of the Picture-Headings see the [Table of Contents].

CHAPTER II.
HOW THE QUAINT OLD FISHES OF ANCIENT TIMES HAVE LIVED ON INTO OUR DAY.

Who is there among my readers who wishes to understand the pleasures, the difficulties, and the secrets of fish life? Whoever he may be he must not be content with merely looking down into the water, as one peeps into a looking-glass, or he may, perchance, only see there the reflection of his own thoughts and ideas, and learn very little of how the fishes really feel and live. No! if we want really to understand fish-life we must forget for a time that we are land and air-breathing animals, and must plunge in imagination into the cool river or the open sea, and wander about as if the water were our true home. For the fish know no more about our land-world than we do about their beautiful ocean-home. To them the water is the beginning and end of everything, and if they come to the top every now and then for a short air-bath they return very quickly for fear of being suffocated. Their great kingdom is the sea—the deep-sea, where strange phosphorescent fish live, lying in the dark mysterious valleys where even sharks and sword-fish rarely venture;—the open sea, where they roam over wide plains when the ocean-bottom makes a fine feeding-ground, or where they thread their way through forests of seaweed, while others swim nearer the surface and come up to bask in the sun or rest on a bank of floating weed;—and the shallow sea, where they come to lay their eggs and bring up their young ones, and out of which many of them venture up the mouths of rivers, while others have learnt to remain in them and make the fresh water their home.