188 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



charged with interest f ocussed on the fish in trouble. 

 I drew the hooked fish close to the boat, and could 

 plainly see that the hook had passed only around 

 the homy maxillary. There was not a drop of 

 blood in the water, and the disability of the fish con- 

 sisted only in its attachment to the line. Yet the 

 very instant the struggle to free itself began, the 

 groupers and sharks, from being at least in appear- 

 ance friendly, or certainly wholly disregarding the 

 pigfish, became concertedly inimical, focussed upon 

 it with the most hostile feeling of an enemy and its 

 prey. 



For half an hour I played upon this reaction and 

 learned more than I had ever seen or read of the 

 attacking and feeding habits of groupers and 

 sharks. When the struggling began the sharks all 

 turned toward the hooked fish. Not only the one 

 nearest who must easily have seen it for himself, 

 but two, far off, turned at the same instant, and 

 within a few seconds two more from quite invisible 

 distances and different directions. What I saw 

 seemed to prove conclusively that sharks, like vul- 

 tm-es, watch one another and know at once when 

 prey has been sighted by one of their fellows. The 

 numerous sharks thus call one another all unin- 

 tentionally, as when one of our party caught a 

 shark at Cocos, and in an incredibly short time there 

 were seventeen attacking it. On the other hand it 

 must be admitted that sharks differ from vul- 

 tures as widely as the poles in the matter of scent. 

 Vultures all but lack this sense, while we know that 

 fish have it well developed. But even in the case 



