CHAPTER III 



SEEN WITH THE EYE OF A FISH 



IT has been stated that the sea is but a butcher's shop, 

 and that a fish lives but to eat or be eaten. The codling, 

 for instance, when feeding among rocks, ^may at any 

 moment be encircled in the deadly clasp of a cuttlefish. 

 When searching for food in more open water, he may 

 fall a prey to the smaller members of the shark tribe. 

 Again, if he comes near the surface, he may be imme- 

 diately swooped down upon by a cormorant. Among 

 animals he has to avoid the porpoise, the otter and the 

 seal, and lastly his home is continually being raked 

 backwards and forwards, night and day, by the nets of 

 men. 



Though surrounded by all these dangers the fish's 

 life is nevertheless a happy one, for he does not suffer 

 from nerves, neither does he appreciate the significance 

 of capture. If the fish realised that capture meant death, 

 on those occasions upon which he escaped from an 

 attack, you would expect him to hide away and remain 

 in hiding for a considerable time. Such, however, is not 

 the case, for he merely shoots aside with a whisk of his 

 tail, and is soon feeding again within a few yards of the 

 place where his enemy passed. 



Nature has shaped and painted the cuttlefish, the 



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