CAPTURE OF A SEA-DEVIL. 289 



it. Slackening their efforts gradually, tlie monster rose 

 again to the surface, when a shower of musket-balls and 

 pikes riddled it through. Until this capture was effected, 

 it was believed that a sea-devil was beyond the might of 

 human art and strengh. The dimensions of this fish were 

 not more than half that of the common size, being only 

 fifteen feet in width. A man, however, entered the mouth 

 with ease, the space being two feet and a half. The weight 

 of the fish was so great, that, with difficulty, forty men with 

 two lines attached to it dragged it along the ground. 



A devil-fish taken at Barbadoes required seven yoke of 

 oxen to draw it. 



In the account of the fish taken in Delaware Bay (remarks 

 the Hon. Richard Hill in an interesting article on the subject 

 of the devil-fish), it was stated that drawing a boat after it 

 with the celerity of a whale when harpooned, it caused a 

 wave to be raised on each side the trough of the sea, several 

 feet higher than the boat; that during the- scuffle the vast 

 fins of the fish lashed the sea with such vehemence that the 

 spray rose to the height of thirty feet, and rained dropping 

 water around to the distance of fifty feet, and yet the meas- 

 urement of this fish was only half of those generally seen, 

 being only eighteen feet in breadth. Three pairs of oxen, one 

 horse, and twenty-two men, all pulling together, with the 

 surges of the Atlantic to help, could barely convey the mon- 

 ster to the dry beach. 



The monstrous skate said by Pere Labat to have been 

 observed by the natives of Guadaloupe, and described as 

 fourteen feet broad, and ten feet from the head to the com- 

 mencement of the tail, with the tail fifteen feet more, alto- 

 gether twenty-five feet long, was no doubt a kindred species 

 of the devil-fish ; and the monster spoken of by the early 

 voyagers as suffocating the pearl-divers in the water, and 

 known by the name of Mania, was a similar animal. 



Surprising stories are related of these fishes. Le Yaillant 



