OCEAN FISH AND OCEAN FISHING 77 



as much as six men can do to play the monster, so 

 furious are its rushes for liberty, and even when 

 exhausted and brought close up and its capture 

 certain, it will, as I have witnessed, make a final 

 dash with such vigour as to run out nearly a 

 hundred fathoms of line. It then usually suc- 

 cumbs, and is hauled up like a log. 



The fish I saw captured was in magnificent con- 

 dition, glistening with health — which reminds me 

 that rarely or never is a fish that is weak or off 

 colour caught at sea, for the simple reason that if 

 injured or weakly it is instantly snapped up by its 

 comrades. Thus only the fittest survive. 



We found that, as with the tunny, the choicest 

 part of the albacore was the belly, very much like 

 veal. Some of the other portions were pickled, 

 and made very passable salt beef 



Far away from the land, wanderers perhaps 

 from the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico, 

 where sun-fishes abound, one comes across a few 

 solitary specimens either asleep near the surface, 

 their back fin showing, or lazily rolling along, 

 looking for all the world like a big cart-wheel, or a 

 huge turbot swimming on its edge. 



The sun-fish is well known from its marked 

 resemblance to a sun with two rays, the dorsal fin 

 being connected with the ventral, which latter does 



