A Life of Peril 207 



in fragments before he had time to sink, and instantly 

 returned to their furious occupation of tearing at the 

 whale. 



In considering the Hfe of the Bonito, we must 

 remember that we are descending the size scale, and 

 that consequently the number of his enemies appre- 

 ciably increase. The largest Bonito I ever saw scaled 

 only twenty-eight pounds, and I feel sure that he was 

 a great exception to the general rule, the average size 

 being eight or ten pounds. Owing to their habit 

 of swimming in large schools, and of crowding together 

 as if for mutual protection, when instinct warns them 

 that enemies are about, they fall a comparatively easy 

 prey to such voracious enemies as the grampus, the 

 albacore, and the sword-fish (Xi-phias), while, of course, 

 they themselves prey quite as furiously upon the 

 younger members of their own family. But they 

 must be an amazingly prolific fish, judging from the 

 enormous schools met with and the ease with which 

 they may be captured by their enemies. 



As to their place of origin, there is perhaps more 

 mystery about that than about any other of the pelagic 

 fish. Whether they imitate their giant relative, the 

 albacore, and make periodical visits to comparatively 

 shallow waters in order to spawn, or as the dolphin 

 do, deposit their ova upon and among floating masses 

 of sea-weed, is a point not easily settled. But two 

 things are certain, and they are, that, like the dolphin, 

 the Bonito is never seen near land except that be 

 very abrupt in its rise from the sea-bed, like St. Helena, 

 and being essentially a surface-fish frequenting the 

 deepest ocean areas, he cannot go to the bottom to 

 spawn. And when we have stated that, we have ex- 

 hausted our knowledge of this creature's family habits. 



I have caught them in the North and South Atlantic, 



