CHAPTER III 
SEEN WITH THE EYE OF A FISH 
Ir has been stated that the sea is but a butcher’s shop, 
and that a fish lives but to eat or be eaten. The codling, 
for instance, when feeding among rocks, may at any 
moment be encircled in the deadly clasp of a cuttlefish. 
When searching for food in more open water, he may 
fall a prey to the smaller members of the shark tribe. 
Again, if he comes near the surface, he may be imme- 
diately swooped down upon by a cormorant. Among 
animals he has to avoid the porpoise, the otter and the 
seal, and lastly his home is continually being raked 
backwards and forwards, night and day, by the nets of 
men. 
Though surrounded by all these dangers the fish’s 
life is nevertheless a happy one, for he does not suffer 
from nerves, neither does he appreciate the significance 
ofcapture. If the fish realised that capture meant death, 
on those occasions upon which he escaped from an 
attack, you would expect him to hide away and remain 
in hiding for a considerable time. Such, however, is not 
the case, for he merely shoots aside with a whisk of his 
tail, and is soon feeding again within a few yards of the 
place where his enemy passed. 
Nature has shaped and painted the cuttlefish, the 
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