174 SEA FISHERIES 



times leads to victory. Woe to the loiterers ! they 

 perish. The gilt-heads and young sardines, which allow 

 themselves to be surprised during the winter in the fish- 

 pond of Berre by a sharp and sudden frost, die in shoals. 

 Yet, despite the suddenness of the attack, there are some 

 that triumph ; those which have been able to bury them- 

 selves in the protective mud. In 1878 many of the 

 codfish of the Nantucket shoals died of the cold. 

 When the danger had passed the survivors reappeared 

 to struggle and to conquer. Thus the fishermen of the 

 Frisian islands, almost year after year, build their huts 

 in the same place, although they have been laid flat by 

 the storms. Thus the people of Messina rebuilt their 

 city, destroyed by earthquake, on the same site. 1 



The fishes have to support not only the onslaught of 

 nature, but the attacks of the more powerful among them- 

 selves. The struggle for life in the depths of the sea is 

 pitiless. We see in Dublin Museum a fishing-frog 

 (angler-fish) still swollen by an enormous codfish which 

 it had swallowed ; in the stomach of the cod are two 

 large herring ; in each herring several sprats ; in each 

 sprat a mixture composed of minute crustaceans, algae, 

 and plankton of various kinds ; and from the plankton 

 to the cod the forms and tissues of the animals and 

 algae are so well preserved that the successive tragedies 

 must have been enacted within the space of half an hour. 

 The menu changes with the strength and size of the 

 diner and of his jaws. 



Those eat who are worthy of their meal. Pollack 



1 The Lisbon earthquake of 1755 was felt as far as the Straits of 

 Gibraltar. Before this period, the tunny used to frequent the 

 Spanish side. After the earthquake this became so shallow that the 

 tunny could no longer pass without danger. They went by on the 

 other side. 



