82 Fish Stories 



as the mud dries, surrounded by a fine firm layer of dried 

 clay, he gives up his shark ghost. When the tide comes in, 

 there he Hes — in a firm matrix. The silt of the Stickeen 

 is sifted over him, and he is far along on the way to be a 

 finely preserved fossil. 



In some such fashion as this, the best preserved fossil 

 fishes have been laid away. In similar way, the remarkable 

 collection of fishes of the Cretaceous age preserved in 

 models of clay in Ceara, in northern Brazil, have been de- 

 posited. These are in the mountains called Serra de Araripe, 

 and are many hundreds of thousands of years old. Nev- 

 ertheless, among the species of gars and tarpon-like fishes 

 buried in this silt, there are some which have the eye-balls 

 perfectly preserved, and some have the black spots and 

 stripes which lie under the scales, still showing perfectly as 

 in the fresh fish. A hundred thousand years hence, some 

 geologist will have a wonderful find at the north end of the 

 little cape above Fort Wrangel. May these pages last long 

 enough to give him the proper pointer ! 



The most dainty of all my shark fishing was undertaken 

 oflf Misaki, Japan, near the ofifshore Island of Oshima. 

 Kuma Aoki, prince of Japanese fishermen, did the work, 

 while science and I reaped the benefits. Kuma brought out 

 his long lines, which he calls dabonawa, a quarter to half a 

 mile long, baited the many little hooks, and sank them to 

 the bottom of the sea. When they came up, there were 

 many fishes on them : rock fish, rose fish, all bright crimson 

 in color, and most of them new as to species. In this same 

 lot were most of the peculiar deep-sea forms dredged years 

 before by the British steamer '' Challenger " in the Gulf of 

 Sagami. But of all these creatures, the most interesting 

 was a little black sharklet, not more than a foot long, jet 

 black. It lives down there in the depths in absolute dark- 

 ness, and is small enough to be a household pet. But the 

 remarkable thing of it is, that it carries its own lanterns, 

 and makes its own way in the dark. On each side of the 



