CHAPTER XX 



THE UNNATURAL HISTORY OF THE 



SEA* 



There is nothing more desperate than an angry fish. 



— John Hance, of Bright Angel. 



HERE is an American play in which the hero — 

 naturally an angler — conceives the horrible sus- 

 picion that he may be also a " genius." A 

 genius is one who knows things without having 

 to find them out. Some time since I met a voluminous 

 writer on angling and hunting, who had never gone fishing 

 but once, and who had never seen a bear, except in a men- 

 agerie. '' That man is a genius," said a friend at the time. 

 *' He has the gift of seeing himself fishing and killing bears, 

 when in his city flat. He can work out all the details of 

 strenuous sport in his mind's eye without paying ten dollars 

 a day for gaffer or guide, and he tells it better than any of 

 you sportsmen. Such a man is a genius ! " 



It is well to know just what a genius is, but it is sad that 

 a genius should be able to hold back the waves of zoological 

 knowledge in America. Applied to current events, his 

 method is that called " yellow journalism." It is only lately 

 that yellow journalism has turned from fashion, graft and 

 politics, domains exhausted, to the fresh fields of the woods 

 and the pastures. Still sadder it is, that driven from these 

 by the shadow of the BIG STICK, it has invaded the Haunt- 

 ing Silences of the depths of the sea. 



But so it is. Not a week passes by without some exhibi- 



* With reference to " The Haunters of the Silences," by Charles 

 G. D. Roberts. 



174 



