Queer Game 



bon. Along the back was a delicate fin, and upon the 

 head a marvelous array of plume-like objects. 



' The fish was known to the men as the ribbon- 

 fish, but none of them had seen so large a specimen, 

 one so like a snake; small ones of ten or twelve feet 

 being not uncommon. 



' This captive created a revival of the interest in 

 the sea serpent, and it was found upon investigation 

 that a number of ribbon-fishes had been caught in this 

 locality, one being reported as fifty feet in length; 

 but this was not verified. The smack Sovereign, 

 owned by Lord Norbury, caught one sixty feet in 

 length, but the men, considering it an uncanny object, 

 cut it up and threw it away. The fish is known to 

 science as Regalecus banksi, and in all probability 

 many of the tales of sea monsters may be laid at its 

 door. To illustrate the possibility of this, it may be 

 said that the fish has a singular habit of swimming 

 along at the surface, with its head on or above it, so 

 that the peculiar plume-like objects show. Its motion 

 is an undulatory one, which would give it a snake-like 

 appearance in the water. 



" Another Regalecus was captured in Northern 

 waters by a vessel in hauling up the anchor. In some 

 way the band-shaped fish had become entangled in the 

 chain, and was hauled to the surface, and fifteen or 

 twenty feet of it taken aboard the vessel by the 

 sailors." 



" To be stabbed by a fish is singular," said 

 303 



