The Mighty Deep 



It seizes upon a fish, perhaps six or eight 

 times as large as its own body, and ''gradually 

 climbs ove7' it with its jaws " — a truly marvel- 

 lous exploit ! Its mouth and stomach stretch 

 elastically during this process, till the whole 

 of the large fish has passed inside the little 

 fish, and a vast pouch hangs below, filled with 

 the meal just taken. This bag is the distended 

 stomach. 



But the tale carries its own moral. The 

 greediness of the fish — and apparently it is a 

 case of individual greediness, though it springs 

 from a family tendency — is punished as it 

 deserves by death. As the swallowed "mouth- 

 ful " decomposes, it loads the bag with gases, 

 like an inflated balloon ; and like a balloon the 

 stomach acts, bearing the unhappy victim to the 

 sea -surface, where it floats wrong way up. A 

 sufficiently tragic ending ! 



A stout-built animal is the Wolf-fish, varying 

 in length from three to seven feet ; and in 

 his ways a veritable ''wild beast," powerful and 

 savage, with strong jaw^s, teeth fashioned like 

 those of a tiger, a vicious temper, and a ferocious 

 scowl. An abnormal appetite too is his, though 

 hardly equal to that of the Black Swallower. In 

 Maine these brutes have been known to attack 



244 



