The Unintelligence of Fishes 309 



an arrow from a bow, and reaching the pier upon which 

 I was standing, dashed beneath it, secured a purchase on 

 the Hne and broke it. Now this was the very thing of all 

 others for this fish to do, its only hope of escape, and that 

 he took it is presumptive of some intelligence ; but what did 

 this yellowtail do ? In less than ten minutes he was parad- 

 ing up and down the pier in plain sight, towing about six 

 feet of my line, and I could see a red blotch on his jaw 

 which the hook had discolored. One would think that an 

 intelligent fish possessed of any feelings of dehcacy would 

 have retired at least for the day, but you know not the 

 yellowtail. Not he. In twenty minutes he took another 

 hook, but this time did not go to the trouble of making a 

 run. He took a turn around the pile, teredo-worn and 

 jagged, and put on the requisite amount of pressure, — forty- 

 two pounds, — broke the line and soon again appeared. 



A few days later I hooked a yellowtail in perfectly clear 

 water from the dock and succeeded in stopping it before it 

 reached it ; the fish made a lateral swing, then I saw it plunge 

 down and deliberately wriggle under a hawser lying almost 

 on the bottom. This was very clever, but the fish miscalcu- 

 lated, he fastened the line, but did not have sufficient slack 

 to enable him to break it, so w^as caught, and I broke my 

 line in trying to clear it, leaving the big twenty-five-pound 

 fish anchored at the bottom. I determined not to desert it 

 and sent for a boat-hook to drag up the hawser ; and while I 

 was waiting and looking down, along came another yellow- 

 tail which took its place by the side of the prisoner and 

 seemed to be trying to aid it. Of course I knew nothing 

 about it, but the friendly yellowtail did not leave its fish mate 

 even when I began to work at the line with the boathook, 

 but stood by until I hooked up the hawser and cut the fish 

 away. There is a strong temptation to make a real '' fish 

 story " out of this. I could say that when fishing near here 

 a week later I fell overboard, and was going down for the 

 last time when a yellowtail of colossal proportions rose and 



