The bonito and coryphæna in their turn are often transpierced by the lance of the sword-fish, who, like the saw-snouted pristis, is said to engage even the sperm whale, and to put this huge leviathan to flight.
But of all the monsters of the tropical seas, there is none more dreaded by man than the white shark.
SUN FISH.
SWORD TAIL.
Woe to the sailor that falls overboard while one of these tyrants of the ocean is prowling about the ship; but woe also to the shark who, caught by a baited hook, is drawn on board, for a slow and cruel death is sure to be his lot. Mutilated and hacked to pieces, his torments are protracted by his uncommon tenacity of life.
Such, besides herds of playful dolphins, are the members of the finny creation most commonly met with on the high seas, but in general the waters at a greater distance from the land are poor in fishes. The tropical fishes chiefly abound near the coasts, in the sheltered lagoons, and in the channels which wind through numberless reefs or islands.
As the colibris dart from flower to flower in the Brazilian woods, thus the gorgeous balistinæ and glyphodons sport about the submerged coral-gardens, and enhance the brilliancy of their fairy bowers.
While these lustrous fishes belted with azure, red, and gold, defy the imagination of the poet to describe their beauty, others remind one by their deformity of the chimeras engendered by the diseased brain of a delirious patient. Here we see the hideous frog-fish creeping along like a toad upon his hand-like fin, there the sun-fish swimming about like a vast head severed from its trunk. Cased like the armadillo in an inflexible coat of mail, into which every movable part can be withdrawn, the trunk-fish derides the attack of many an enemy; and inflating its spiny body, the diodon, like the hedgehog of the land, bids defiance to his foes.