268 The Mackerel 



by wandering fish during these predatory journeys, 

 but their exit from one stage of usefulness into another 

 was so sudden and easy that no one could connect 

 any idea of tragedy with it. 



Still, in spite of all the influences that were arrayed 

 against them, and as a proof of their amazing numbers, 

 there came a day when thousands of tiny fish suddenly 

 appeared, as if at a given signal, each carrying with 

 it attached by a cord the yolk of the egg it had just 

 quitted, upon which it would subsist for the next 

 forty-eight hours. And never during its career was 

 the fish in such danger of sudden extinction as now, 

 when, about in full view of hungry enemies, the attached 

 yolk added to its conspicuousness and hampered its 

 movements, and it seemed a manifest impossibility 

 for it to escape. Certainly the thinning out of the 

 young Sword-fish now reached its most acute stage, 

 for not one in a hundred survived. Yet all this 

 selection and survival of the fittest had been arranged 

 with unerring wisdom and accuracy — not one of those 

 tiny creatures was devoured without its going being 

 according to plan. 



In what out-of-the-way holes and corners the 

 young fry spent their early days, upon what tiny 

 morsels of food they fed and grew strong, and what 

 amazing and multitudinous hairbreadth escapes they 

 had before attaining to the moderate size of one foot 

 in length — all this proportion of their life history is 

 hidden from us. When next we meet with them they 

 have grown sturdy, predaceous and swift. Although 

 only a foot or so long, they have already developed 

 many of the qualities which will presently make them 

 the undoubted rulers of the fishy world, yet at this 

 age they have, allied to their undoubted ferocity, 

 a large amount of caution which prevents them 



