The sword-fish has obstinate combats with the saw-fish, and even the shark, and it is supposed that when he attacks the bottom of a vessel he takes that sombre mass for the body of an enemy. But this terrible jouster, this Paladin of the abyss, often becomes himself the prey of a most contemptible enemy. A miserable little parasite, the Pennatula filesa, penetrates its flesh, and almost drives it mad with pain.
The flesh of the young sword-fish is white, compact, and of excellent taste; that of adults resembles the tunny. It is the object of a fishery of some importance in the Straits of Messina. The fishermen of Messina and Reggio join in this fishery with a great number of boats, carrying brilliant flambeaux, while one of the crew is stationed at the mast-head to announce the approach of the sword-fish. At a given signal the boats rush on to attack them with the harpoons (Fig. 393). During this fishery the sailors sing a peculiar melody, but without words.
Fig. 393. Fishing for Sword-fish in the Straits of Messina.
The family of Pediculate Pectorals is so named from the fishes of which it is composed bearing their pectoral fins on a species of arm which forms a prolongation of the carp bone; it includes the Frog-fish, remarkable for the excessive circumference of the head and shoulders as compared with the rest of the body, the immense opening of a jaw, armed with pointed teeth, and the cutaneous jagged stripes of various lengths with which it bristles at many points. Its skin is soft, smooth, and without scales or other asperities; the members which support the pectorals, and other peculiarities, combine to render it a hideous and forbidding object, well calculated in ignorant and superstitious times to frighten the multitude. The remains of this fish, prepared in such a manner as to be transparent, and rendered luminous by a lamp enclosed in its interior, has often helped to deceive and frighten the timid by its fantastic appearance.
Fig. 394. The Frog-fish (Lophius piscatorius).
The Frog-fish, Lophius piscatorius—Linn. (Fig. 394), which attains the length of five or six feet, lives in the sand, or sunk in the mud, leaving the long and movable filaments with which the head is furnished to float in the water; the shreds which terminate them act as natural bait when they float about in different directions, from their resemblance to worms and other living creatures. The fishes which swim above them, and which they see very well by the assistance of their two eyes placed on the summit of the head, are attracted by these deceitful decoys. When the prey arrives near to the enormous jaws, which are almost always wide open, it is engulfed and torn to pieces by its strongly-hooked teeth.
This manner of lying in ambush, and fishing, as it were, with a hook and line for fishes which its conformation does not permit it to pursue, has acquired for it the name of the frog-fish, which is sometimes given to it. It is found more or less in all parts of the Mediterranean and in many parts of the Atlantic, being frequently taken both in the Gulf of Gascony and in the Channel.
The family of Labridæ comprehends: I. The Wrasse (Labrus), a genus of fishes decked in the most lively colours; for the yellow, green, blue, and red, forming bands of spots, give the body the appearance of being enriched with brilliant metallic reflections. II. The Julis, of Risso, the Mediterranean species of which is remarkable for its fine violet colour, relieved on each side by an orange band.