206 The Bonito 



that giddy eminence, have dealt with such a monster ? 

 He would certainly have paralysed my grip with his 

 struggles and shaken me off the boom. The dolphin, 

 too, is a fish that is seldom caught, not because it will 

 not take a hook voraciously when the circumstances 

 are favourable to its being deceived, but because it 

 is not so sociable in its instincts as is the Bonito, and 

 consequently does not give the sailor so many oppor- 

 tunities of becoming closely associated with it. 



But the Bonito is essentially the sailor's friend. In 

 a slow-moving ship with a light breeze, I have known 

 a school of Bonito keep company with the vessel for 

 three days at a time. Apparently they took it in 

 turns to escort her by proceeding steadily in orderly 

 rows under and around the bows, while the rest gam- 

 bolled about, hunting ahead, abeam and astern. And 

 I have often seen three lines going among them at 

 once, fish after fish taking the upward journey, until 

 two or three dozen have been caught, and never a 

 sign of alarm among those below, unless one of the 

 hooked ones got off and fell back among his fellows 

 with a loud splash, and with blood streaming from 

 his gills. Then indeed there would be an instant 

 disappearance of the whole school, only sometimes a 

 quick eye could catch a departing leap or two some 

 distance away. That, of course, was due to the smell 

 of blood, or whatever sense it is in fish which takes 

 the place of smell, apprehending that there was blood 

 about. Any fish thus wounded among his fellows 

 in the deep sea has no suffering — he is torn in pieces 

 and devoured instantly. And in none was this more 

 noticeable than in the sharks, for whenever one met 

 his death by the blow of a blubber spade, which was 

 about every five minutes, while we were cutting in 

 the whale, his companions fell upon him and tore bim 



