The Mighty Deep 



It seizes upon a fish, perhaps six or eight 

 times as large as its own body, and "gradually 

 climbs over it with its jaws " a truly marvel- 

 lous exploit ! Its mouth and stomach stretch 

 elastically during this process, till the whole 

 of the large fish has passed inside the little 

 fish, and a vast pouch hangs below, filled with 

 the meal just taken. This bag is the distended 

 stomach. 



But the tale carries its own moral. The 

 greediness of the fish and apparently it is a 

 case of individual greediness, though it springs 

 from a family tendency is punished as it 

 deserves by death. As the swallowed "mouth- 

 ful " decomposes, it loads the bag with gases, 

 like an inflated balloon ; and like a balloon the 

 stomach acts, bearing the unhappy victim to the 

 sea -surface, where it floats wrong way up. A 

 sufficiently tragic ending! 



A stout-built animal is the Wolf-fish, varying 

 in length from three to seven feet ; and in 

 his ways a veritable "wild beast," powerful and 

 savage, with strong jaws, teeth fashioned like 

 those of a tiger, a vicious temper, and a ferocious 

 scowl. An abnormal appetite too is his, though 

 hardly equal to that of the Black Swallower. In 

 Maine these brutes have been known to attack 



244 



