FISHES 



17 



eat. Those with the longest teeth were 

 present at the most meals, and those with 

 the biggest mouths dined with them. 

 And some escaped because they had hard, 

 bony scales, too tough to crack. Some 

 were covered over with thorns, and some 

 had spines in their fins, which they set 

 erect when their enemies would swallow 

 them. And some had poison in their 

 spines and benumbed their enemies, and 

 some gave them electric shocks. Some 

 hid in crevices of rock, or bored holes in 

 the mud, and lay there with their noses 

 and their beady eyes peeping out. Some 

 crawled into dead shells. Some stretched 

 their slim, ribbon-like bodies out in the 

 hanging sea-weed. Some fled into caves, 

 whither no one followed them, and where 

 they lay hid for a whole geological age, 

 until, seeing nothing, they had all gone 

 blind. And some went down into the 

 depths of the sea two miles, three miles, 

 five miles I have helped haul them up to 

 the light and these went blind like the 

 others, for the depths of the sea are black 

 as ink and cold as ice. And even there 

 they are not safe, for other fishes go 

 down there to eat them. And some carry 

 lanterns, large, shining spots on their 

 heads or bodies, sometimes like the head 

 light of an engine. And with these flash 

 ing lanterns, these burglars of the deep 

 hunt their prey. And these are hunted by 

 others fish-hungry, too, who lurk in the 

 dark and swallow them, lanterns, head 

 light and all ! 



And so, with all this eating and chasing 

 and fighting and fleeing and hiding and 

 lurking, it comes about that wherever 

 there is decent water on land or sea there 

 are fishes to match it. And every part of 

 every fish is made expressly for the life 

 the fish has to lead. If any kind failed to 

 meet requirements, other fishes would de 

 vour and destroy it. So only the fit can 

 survive and these people the water after 

 their kind. 



All kinds of fishes are good to eat ex 

 cept a few which are too tough, a few 

 which are bitter, and a few that feed on 

 poisonous things about the coral reefs 

 and so become poisonous themselves. 

 Some are insipid, some full of small bones 

 and some are too lean or too small to 

 tempt anybody, unless it be another fish. 

 But this is their business, not ours, and 



they have flesh enough for the things they 

 have to do. 



The biggest fish is the great basking 

 shark, which grows to be thirty-five feet 

 long, and lies on the surface of the sea, 

 like a huge saw-log, filling its great 

 mouth with the little things that float 

 along beside it. 



The smallest of all fishes lives in the 

 everglades of Florida and the streams that 

 run out of them. You can find them in 

 the little brook that runs through Jack 

 sonville. I have netted them there with a 

 spread umbrella, which will serve when 

 you cannot get a better dip-net. They are 

 prettily barred with jet black on a green 

 ish ground, and they belong to that group 

 of top minnows to which Agassiz gave 

 the name of heterandria. It is hard to 

 sav what is the highest fish what is the 

 one which has undergone the greatest 

 modification of structure. Perhaps this 

 place should be assigned to the sole, with 

 its two eyes both on one side of the head, 

 peering through the same socket, while 

 the socket on the other side has no eye 

 at all. Or perhaps we may place as high 

 est some specialized form as the angler or 

 the sargassum fish, which has the paired 

 fins greatly developed almost like arms 

 and legs, and which has a dorsal spine 

 modified into a fishing rod, which has a 

 bait at the end, hanging over the capa 

 cious mouth. 



Agassiz put the sharks higher than all 

 these bony fishes because, while lower in 

 most respects, the sharks have greater 

 brain and greater power of muscle. 

 Others again might give the highest place 

 to the lung fishes, fishes of the tropical 

 swamps, with lungs as well as gills, and 

 which can breathe air after a fashion 

 when the water is all gone. These are not 

 high in themselves, but they are nearest 

 the higher animals, especially interesting 

 to us because from such creatures in the 

 past all the frogs and salamanders, and 

 through these all the beasts that bite, the 

 birds that fly and the reptiles that crawl 

 are descended. These are near the primi 

 tive fish stock, the ancestors of true fishes 

 on the one hand and of the land verte 

 brates on the other. As such, they par 

 take of the nature of both. More cor 

 rectly, their descendants have divided 

 their characters. Their land-progeny lost 



