312 



Fish Stories 



finally a man over in the corner asked " what was the heft 

 of that cat?" 



" He weighed about half a ton," I replied, " and was 

 eighteen feet long." 



"What kind of bait did your uncle use?" persisted the 

 man. 



" A whole watermelon," I replied. " He didn't need any 

 float, as the melon floated." 



" Well," said the man, " he may have cotched him that 

 way, but I'll be derned if I believe a catfish will eat water- 

 melon. At least I never see it done." 



Fishes in running into a net will invariably become gilled. 

 The gill net is made and its action based on the supposed 

 stupidity of fishes. If they strike a net they push through it 

 instead of backing out ; the gill covers caught in the meshes 

 make it hard to back out. A shark immediately rolls over 

 and over and completes his ruin. A tuna will go through 

 a net with such speed that he leaves a round hole. He is 

 rarely caught. No rolling over or quitting for him, yet I 

 saw a large tuna deliberately dash over the kelp and high 

 above the rocks of a point at Catalina Island where it was 

 caught. A barracuda will bite a hole just large enough for 

 his accommodation. 



Small fishes instead of scattering when attacked will al- 

 most invariably combine. I once observed a sea lion (Zal- 

 ophus) surround a school, which it massed into a ball about 

 six feet through of solid anchovies. The intelligent sea lion 

 so terrified them by dashing around them that he kept them 

 in this ball for a long time, occasionally dashing through 

 them, and doubtless nearly exterminated the school. 



The long set fyke nets are fences laid upon the plan that 

 they lead the fish along into an inclosure. If these fishes 

 knew enough they might turn around and find liberty, but 

 the fyke, based upon the assumption of the fishes' lack of 

 intelligence, is one of the most successful of all nets. All 

 the old writers on angling, ^Elian, Gesner, Rondelet, Gerard, 



