76 A NATURALIST ON DESERT ISLANDS. 



One day, while we were anchored off the little bay on 

 the southern side of the island a devil-fish was seen 

 making its way in from the open sea, along the top of the 

 water, towards the shore. It seemed to be heading straight 

 for the opening in the reef, and its arrival caused nearly 

 as much excitement and interest as the advent of a rich 

 " prize " must have done to the old time buccaneers. 



All sorts of wildty improbable tales have found their 

 way into print in regard to this weird-looking fish. It seems 

 to have inspired the greatest dread in the minds of ignorant 

 fishermen ; and to have provided a convenient theme 

 on which old-time travellers could really " let themselves 

 go." The deeds with which it has been credited fairly 

 make one's hair stand on end. The mildest of these 

 seems to have been that in the case of pearl divers, 

 it would hover over and cover a man at the bottom 

 like a blanket, prevent him from rising, and so, of 

 course, drown him. This belief seems to have been of 

 very ancient origin; and among the fishermen and the 

 pearl divers of Central America and western Mexico, the 

 devil-fish is known as the "manta," a Spanish word which 

 signifies a blanket. Why the devil-fish should want to 

 drown a man is difficult to understand, seeing that, as 

 Mr. Theodore Gill * has already pointed out, its diet seems 

 to be in an inverse ratio to its size ; and it is in the highest 

 degree improbable that it would, or could, eat the unfortu- 

 nate diver even if it had succeeded in drowning liim. 



Like several other marine giants, of which the right 

 whales and the gigantic basking shark furnish the best 

 known examples, these huge devil-fish seem to live on 

 minute crustaceans and such like small fry ; and a man 

 would run as little chance of being eaten by one of them 

 as he would by a baleen whale or one of these sharks 

 forty feet in length. 



Again, one of the main missions of life Avhich the devil 

 fish has let himself in for, seems, if we are to believe the 

 reports of fishermen, to be that of deliberately smashing 



* Miscellaneous Collections, Smithsonian Institute^, Vol. III., p. 155. 



