TALES OF FISHES 



for me was to watch the water for new and diflFerent 

 fish, strange marine creatures, life of some kind. 

 And the watching was always rewarded. I have 

 been close to schools of devilish blackfish, and I 

 have watched great whales play all around me. 

 What a spectacle to see a whale roll and dip his 

 enormous body and bend and sounds lifting the huge, 

 glistening flukes of his tail, wide as a house! I hate 

 sharks and have caught many, both little and big. 

 When you are watching for swordfish it is no fun 

 to have a big shark break for your bait, throw the 

 water, get your hook, and lift you from yoiu" seat. 

 It happened often. But sometimes when I was 

 sure it was a shark it was really a swordfish! I used 

 to love to watch the sunfish leap, they are so round 

 and glistening and awkward. I could teU one two 

 miles away. The blue shark leaps often and he 

 always turns clear over. You cannot mistake it. 

 Nor can you mistake a swordfish when he breaks, 

 even though you only see the splash. He makes 

 two great sheets of water rise and fall. Probably 

 all these fish leap to shake off the remoras. A 

 remora is a parasite, a queer little fish, pale in 

 color, because he probably lives inside the gills of 

 the fish he preys upon, with the suckers on top of 

 his head, arranged in a shield, ribbed like a wash- 

 board. This little fish is as mysterious as any 

 creature of the sea. He is as swift as lightning. 

 He can run over the body of a swordfish so quickly 

 you can scarcely follow his movement, and at all 

 times he is fast to the swordfish, holding with that 

 flat sucker head. Mr. Holder wrote years ago that 

 the remora sticks to a fish just to be carried along, 



46 



