The World of Fishes 



pay dearly for his lack of foresight and common- 

 sense. 



As an illustration of the numbers of fishes 

 in the sea, a curious tale is told about a deep- 

 water kind of Mullet, known as the Tile-fish. 



This particular species had not been discovered 

 before the year 1879. A few specimens were 

 then taken from over a bank about eighty miles 

 from the coast of Massachusetts large and 

 brightly coloured. Near that bank, where they 

 had made their home, they could at any time be 

 easily caught. 



But in the spring of 1882 a heavy gale took 

 place ; after which these fishes were seen in 

 enormous quantities, floating at the surface of 

 the water, covering a space of three hundred 

 miles in length and fifty in breadth. One who 

 saw the singular sight reckoned that something 

 like fourteen hundred millions of them must 

 have been there enough to have supplied every 

 man and woman and child in the United States 

 with between two and three hundred pounds* 

 weight of fish. 



In the following autumn, when fishermen went 

 again to the bank for tile-fish, they found none. 

 Not a single specimen turned up. The storm, 

 probably by shifting the direction of the Gulf- 



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