l88 DAHLAk 



an hour before and so had had time enough to imprison a 

 fair number of victims. There were already a dozen coral 

 fish, diagrams and small groupers. Suddenly we noticed the 

 net shaking slowly as if some force at the far end were pulling 

 it. We swam hurriedly along the land side of the net imagin- 

 ing that a shark was pulling at some fine bream or greyskin 

 trapped in the mesh. After twenty yards we stopped to 

 watch an extraordinary scene. A small black-fin was trying 

 at all costs to make his way through the net. It was high tide 

 and the mysterious call of the shallows was urging him on. 

 The black-fin banged the net with his snout, pushed, retired 

 and returned again to push. We kept quite still, intrigued 

 at the show. Then the shark twisted furiously. The net shook 

 violently. He pushed and got caught by the gills in the first 

 mesh. But the first mesh is wide. With a little patience a 

 cunning fish could easily liberate itself and get away. But 

 fish are impulsive creatures. They have just to be touched 

 on the neck and they go mad. Instead of trying to go back 

 they push on. The shark did this. It was terrified and drove 

 itself further and further to its end until it was caught and 

 muzzled by that mortal thick net in the middle. And still it 

 pushed itself on, until it had the third net round it too. When 

 we dragged up the net immediately afterwards to save it 

 from further tearing, the shark was still making its last 

 desperate exertions. One can only conclude that, faced with 

 the most commonplace trap, the pirates of the deep behave 

 as stupidly as the most vulgar, blundering rock fish. 



It was a different story with the *cofie'. They were reduced 

 to a pitiful state after seven or eight throwings. Of a hundred 

 hooks, fifty per 'coffa', ten or twelve remained. And when the 

 reason for this dawned on us it was already too late. We had 

 been leaving them in the water too long (all day, and worse 

 still, overnight). Breams, barracuda, groupers, kingfish and 



