Part 18

Much as the nature and habits of fish have been studied of late years, the economy of some is to this day involved in obscurity. The Herring is one of these fishes. The Swedish Herring Fisheries were, at one time, the largest in Europe, but at present, during the temporary disappearance of the fish, they have dwindled away. The causes which influence the movements of the Herring--one of the most capricious of fish--are a puzzle which naturalists have as yet failed to solve. They are not migratory, as was at one time believed--that is, they seldom wander far from the place where they were bred; but they are influenced by certain hidden and unexplained causes at one time to remain for years in the deep sea, and at another to come close in to land in enormous numbers. During the first half of the sixteenth century, Herrings entirely deserted the Swedish coasts. In 1556 they reappeared, and remained for thirty-one years in the shallow waters. Throughout this period they were taken in incalculable numbers; "thousands of ships came annually from Denmark, Germany, Friesland, Holland, England, and France, to purchase the fish, of which sufficient were always found for them to carry away to their own or other countries.... From the small town of Marstrand alone some two million four hundred thousand bushels were yearly exported." In 1587 the Herrings disappeared, and remained absent for seventy-three years, till 1660. In 1727 they returned, and again in 1747, remaining till 1808, and during this last period the fisheries were prosecuted with extraordinary zeal, industry, and success. The Government gave every encouragement to settlers, and it was computed that during some years as many as fifty thousand strangers took part in them. In 1808 the Herrings once more disappeared, and have never returned since. The cause must still be considered as quite unknown; but we may fairly assume, according to historical precedents, that after a certain period of absence, the Herrings will again return.[17]

Aristotle, in his "History of Animals," makes some extremely curious observations on Fish and Cetaceous Animals, as might be expected from the variety of these animals in the Grecian seas. In Spratt and Forbes's "Travels in Syria" the account of the habits and structure of the Cuttle-fish in Aristotle's work is ranked amongst the most admirable natural history essays ever written. It is, moreover, remarkable for its anticipation.

Dr. Osborne, in 1840, read to the Royal Society a short analysis of this work, in which he showed that Aristotle anticipated Dr. Jenner's researches respecting the cuckoo; as also some discoveries respecting the incubated egg, which were published as new in the above year. Aristotle describes the economy of bees as we have it at present; but mistakes the sex of the queen. The various organs are described as modified throughout the different classes of animals (beginning with man) in nearly the same order as that afterwards adopted by Cuvier.

The chief value of this body of knowledge, which has been buried for above 2,000 years, is, that it is a collection of facts observed under peculiar advantages, such as never since occurred, and that _it is at the present day to be consulted for new discoveries_.

According to Pliny, for the above work some thousands of men were placed at Aristotle's disposal throughout Greece and Asia, comprising persons connected with hunting and fishing, or who had the care of cattle, fish-ponds, and apiaries, in order that he might obtain information from all quarters, _ne quid usquam gentium ignoretur ab eo_. According to Athenæus, Aristotle received from the prince, on account of the expenses of the work, 800 talents, or upwards of 79,000_l._

FOOTNOTES:

[14] A tench was brought to Mr. Harmer so full of spawn that the skin was burst by a slight knock, and many thousands of the eggs were lost; yet even after this misfortune he found the remainder to amount to 383,252! Of other marine animals, which he includes under the general term fish, the fecundity, though sufficiently great, is by no means enormous. A lobster yielded 7,227 eggs; a prawn 3,806; and a shrimp 3,057. See Mr. Harmer's paper, "Philosophical Transactions," 1767.

[15] "Athenæum."

[16] See "The Tree-climbing Crab," pp. 282-302.

[17] "Saturday Review."

FISH IN BRITISH COLOMBIA.

In this bitterly cold country, where the snow lies deep six months out of the twelve, the natives subsist principally on fish, of which there is an extraordinary abundance generally, and of salmon particularly. Salmon swarm in such numbers that the rivers cannot hold them. In June and July every rivulet, no matter how shallow, is so crammed with salmon that, from sheer want of room, they push one another high and dry upon the pebbles; and Mr. Lord[18] tells us that each salmon, with its head up, struggles, fights, and scuffles for precedence. With one's hands only, or more easily by employing a gaff or a crook-stick, tons of salmon have been procured by the simple process of hooking them out. Once started on their journey, the salmon never turn back. As fast as those in front die, fresh arrivals crowd on to take their places, and share their fate. "It is a strange and novel sight to see three moving lines of fish--the dead and dying in the eddies and slack water along the bank, the living breasting the current in the centre, blindly pressing on to perish like their kindred." For two months this great _salmon army_ proceeds on its way up stream, furnishing a supply of food without which the Indians must perish miserably. The winters are too severe for them to venture out in search of food, even if there was any to be obtained. From being destitute of salt, they are unable to cure meat in the summer for winter provisions, and hence for six months in the year they depend upon salmon, which they preserve by drying in the sun.

But the Indian has another source of provision for the winter, fully as important as the salmon. The Candle-fish supplies him at once with light, butter, and oil.[19] When dried, and perforated with a rush, or strip of cypress-bark, it can be lighted, and burns steadily until consumed. Strung up, and hung for a time in the smoke of a wood fire, it is preserved as a fatty morsel to warm him when pinched with cold; and, by heat and pressure, it is easily converted into liquid oil, and drunk with avidity. That nothing may be wanting, the hollow stalk of the sea-wrack, which at the root is expanded into a complete flask, makes an admirable bottle; and so, when the Indian buries himself for long dreary months in his winter quarters, neither his larder nor his cellar are empty, and he has a lamp to lighten the darkness. The steamers have, however, frightened away the Candle-fish and the Indian from their old haunts, and they have both retreated to the north of the Colombia River.

Amongst the other inhabitants of the salt and fresh waters of these regions are the Halibut and the Sturgeon, both of which attain to an immense size. The bays and inlets along the coast abound with marine wonders. There feasts and fattens the Clam, a bivalve so gigantic that no oyster-knife can force an entrance, and only when his shell is almost red-hot will he be at last constrained to open his dwelling.

And there lies in wait the awful Octopus, a monster of insatiable voracity, of untameable ferocity, and of consummate craft; of sleepless vigilance, shrouded amidst the forest of sea-weed, and from the touch of whose terrible arms no living thing escapes. It attains to an enormous size in those seas, the arms being sometimes five feet in length, and as thick at the base as a man's wrist. No bather would have a chance if he once got within the grasp of such a monster, nor could a canoe resist the strength of its pull; but the Indian, who devours the Octopus with great relish, has all the cunning created by necessity, and takes care that none of the eight sucker-dotted arms ever gain a hold on his frail bark.

Professor Owen has figured a species of Octopus, the Eight-armed Cuttle of the European seas, representing it in the act of creeping on shore, its body being carried vertically in the reverse position, with its head downwards, and its back being turned towards the spectator, upon whom it is supposed to be advancing. This animal is said to be luminous in the dark. Linnæus quotes Bartholinus for the statement that one gave so much light that when the candle was taken away, it illuminated the room.

The Sturgeon is one of the finest fishes of the country, and Mr. Lord's account of the Indian mode of taking them is a very graphic picture of this river sport.

"The spearman stands in the bow, armed with a most formidable spear. The handle, from seventy to eighty feet long, is made of white pine-wood; fitted on the spear-haft is a barbed point, in shape very much like a shuttlecock, supposing each feather represented by a piece of bone, thickly barbed, and very sharp at the end. This is so contrived that it can be easily detached from the long handle by a sharp, dexterous jerk. To this barbed contrivance a long line is made fast, which is carefully coiled away close to the spearman, like a harpoon-line in a whale-boat. The four canoes, alike equipped, are paddled into the centre of the stream, and side by side drift slowly down with the current, each spearman carefully feeling along the bottom with his spear, constant practice having taught the crafty savages to know a Sturgeon's back when the spear comes in contact with it. The spear-head touches the drowsy fish; a sharp plunge, and the redskin sends the notched points through armour and cartilage, deep into the leather-like muscles. A skilful jerk frees the long handle from the barbed end, which remains inextricably fixed in the fish; the handle is thrown aside, the line seized, and the struggle begins. The first impulse is to resist this objectionable intrusion, so the angry Sturgeon comes up to see what it all means. This curiosity is generally repaid by having a second spear sent crashing into him. He then takes a header, seeking safety in flight, and the real excitement commences. With might and main the bowman plies the paddle, and the spearman pays out the line, the canoe flying through the water. The slightest tangle, the least hitch, and over it goes; it becomes, in fact, a sheer trial of paddle _versus_ fin. Twist and turn as the Sturgeon may, all the canoes are with him. He flings himself out of the water, dashes through it, under it, and skims along the surface; but all is in vain, the canoes and their dusky oarsmen follow all his efforts to escape, as a cat follows a mouse. Gradually the Sturgeon grows sulky and tired, obstinately floating on the surface. The savage knows he is not vanquished, but only biding a chance for revenge; so he shortens up the line, and gathers quietly on him to get another spear in. It is done,--and down viciously dives the Sturgeon; but pain and weariness begin to tell, the struggles grow weaker and weaker as life ebbs slowly away, until the mighty armour-plated monarch of the river yields himself a captive to the dusky native in his frail canoe."

There is a very rare Spoonbill Sturgeon found in the western waters of North America: its popular name is Paddle-fish. One, five feet in length, weighed forty pounds; the nose, resembling a spatula, was thirteen inches in length. It was of a light slate colour, spotted with black; belly white; skin smooth, like an eel; the flesh compact and firm, and hard when boiled--not very enticing to the epicure. The jaws are without teeth, but the fauces are lined with several tissues of the most beautiful network, evidently for the purpose of collecting its food from the water by straining, or passing it through these membranes in the same manner as practised by the spermaceti whale. Near the top of the head are two small holes, through which it is possible the Sturgeon may discharge water in the manner practised by cetaceous animals. It is conjectured that the long "Spoonbill" nose of this fish is for digging up or moving the soft mud in the bottom of the river, and when the water is fully saturated, draw it through the filamentory strainers in search of food.

Sturgeons resemble sharks in their general form, but their bodies are defended by bony shields, disposed in longitudinal rows; and their head is also well curiassed externally. The Sturgeons of North America are of little benefit to the natives. A few speared in the summer-time suffice for the temporary support of some Indian hordes; but none are preserved for winter use, and the roe and sounds are utterly wasted.

The northern limit of the Sturgeon in America is probably between the 55th and 56th parallels of latitude. Dr. Richardson did not meet with any account of its existence to the north of Stewart's Lake, on the west side of the Rocky Mountains; and on the east side it does not go higher than the Saskatchewan and its tributaries. It is not found in Churchill River, nor in any of the branches of the Mackenzie or other streams that fall into the Arctic Seas--a remarkable circumstance when we consider that some species swarm in the Asiatic rivers which flow into the Icy Sea. Sturgeons occur in all the great lakes communicating with the St. Lawrence, and also along the whole Atlantic coast of the United States down to Florida. Peculiar species inhabit the Mississippi; it is, therefore, probable that the range of the genus extends to the Gulf of Mexico.

The great rapid which forms the discharge of the Saskatchewan into Lake Winnipeg appears quite alive with these fish in the month of June; and some families of the natives resort thither at that time to spear them with a harpoon, or grapple them with a strong hook tied to a pole. Notwithstanding the great muscular power of the Sturgeon, it is timid; and Dr. Richardson saw one so frightened at the paddling of a canoe, that it ran its nose into a muddy bank, and was taken by a _voyageur_, who leaped upon its back.

In Colombia River, a small species of Sturgeon attains eleven feet in length, and a weight of six hundred pounds.[20] It is caught as high up as Fort Colville, notwithstanding the numerous intervening cataracts and rapids which seem to be insuperable barriers to a fish so sluggish in its movements.

The Sturgeon is styled a Royal Fish in England, because, by a statute of Edward II. it is enacted, "the King shall have Sturgeon taken in the sea, or elsewhere, within the realm."

FOOTNOTES:

[18] "The Naturalist in Vancouver Island and British Columbia." By John Keast Lord, F.Z.S., Naturalist to the British North American Boundary Commission.

[19] The Petrel is similarly used in the Faroe Islands. (See _ante_, p. 234.) It may, therefore, be called the Candle Bird.

[20] Dr. Richardson. The _Huro_ is reported by Pallas to attain a weight of nearly three thousand pounds, and a length exceeding thirty feet.

THE TREE-CLIMBING CRAB.

The transition from the ordinary mode of the locomotion of fishes by swimming to that of climbing has been ably illustrated by the Rev. Dr. Buckland, who showed, in a communication to the Ashmolean Society, in 1843, that the fins in certain genera perform the functions of feet and wings. Thus, "fishing-frogs" have the fins converted into feet, or paddles, by means of which they have the power of crawling or hopping on sand and mud; and another species can live three days out of the water, and walk upon dry land. The climbing perch of the Indian rivers is known to live a long time in the air, and to climb up the stems of palm-trees in pursuit of flies, by means of spinous projections on its gill-covers. Fishes of the _silurus_ family have a bony enlargement of the first ray of the pectoral fin, which is also armed with spines; and this is not only an offensive and defensive weapon, but enables the fish to walk along the bottom of the fresh waters which it inhabits. The flying-fishes are notorious examples of the conversion of fins into an organ of movement in the air. M. Deslongchamps has published, in the "Transactions of the Linnæan Society of Normandy," 1842, a curious account of the movements of the gurnard at the bottom of the sea. In 1839, he observed these movements in one of the artificial fishing-ponds, or fishing-traps, surrounded by nets, on the shore of Normandy. He saw a score of gurnards closing their fins against their sides, like the wing of a fly in repose, and without any movement of their tails, walking along the bottom by means of six free rays, three on each pectoral fin, which they placed successively on the ground. They moved rapidly forwards, backwards, to the right and left, groping in all directions with these rays, as if in search of small crabs. Their great heads and bodies seemed to throw hardly any weight on the slender rays, or feet, being suspended in water, and having their weight further diminished by their swimming-bladder. During these movements the gurnards resembled insects moving along the sand. When M. Deslongchamps moved in the water, the fish swam away rapidly to the extremity of the pond; when he stood still, they resumed their ambulatory movement, and came between his legs. On dissection, we find these three anterior rays of the pectoral fins to be supported each with strong muscular apparatus to direct their movements, apart from the muscles that are connected with the smaller rays of the pectoral fin.

Dr. Buckland states that Miss Potts, of Chester, had sent to him a flagstone from a coalshaft at Mostyn, bearing impressions which he supposed to be the trackway of some fish crawling along the bottom by means of the anterior rays of its pectoral fins. There were no indications of feet, but only scratches, symmetrically disposed on each side of a space that may have been covered by the body of the fish whilst making progress, by pressing its fin-bones on the bottom. As yet, no footsteps of reptiles, or of any animals more highly organized than fishes, have been found in strata older than those which belong to the new red sandstone. The abundant remains of fossil fishes, armed with strong bony spines, and of other fishes allied to the gurnard, in strata of the carboniferous and old red sandstone series, would lead us to expect the frequent occurrence of impressions made by their locomotive organs on the bottoms of the ancient waters in which they lived. Dr. Buckland proposed to designate these petrified traces or trackways of ancient fishes by the term of fish-tracks.

Crabs and Lobsters are strange creatures: strange in their configurations; strange in the transmutations which they exhibit from the egg to maturity; strange in the process they undergo of casting off, not only their shell, but the covering of their eyes, of their long horns, and even the lining of their tooth-furnished stomach; strange, also, are they in their manners and habits. Many a reader, in wandering along the sea-shore, may have disturbed little colonies of Crabs quietly nestling in fancied security amidst banks of slimy sea-weed; and in the nooks and recesses of the coast, the shallows, and strips of land left dry at ebb-tide, may be seen numbers of little, or perchance large, Crabs, some concealed in snug lurking-places, others tripping, with a quick _side-long_ movement, over the beach, alarmed by the advance of an unwelcome intruder. Some are exclusively tenants of the water, have feet formed like paddles for swimming, and never venture on land; others seem to love the air and sunshine, and enjoy an excursion, not without hopes of finding an acceptable repast, over the oozy sands; some, equally fond of the shore and shallow water, appropriate to themselves the shells of periwinkles, whelks, &c., and there live in a sort of castle, which they drag about with them on their excursions, changing it for a larger as they increase in measure of growth. They vary in size from microscopic animalcules to the gigantic King Crab:[21] to the former, the luminosity of the ocean, or of the foam before the prows of vessels, is, to a great extent, attributable, each minute creature glowing with phosphoric light.

The Bernhard Crab has been proved to have the power of dissolving shells, it not being unusual to find the long fusiform shells which are inhabited by these animals with the inner lip, and the greater part of the pillar on the inside of the mouth, destroyed, so as to render the aperture much larger than usual. Dr. Gray is quite convinced that these Crabs have the above power, some to a much greater degree than others.

Certain Crabs, especially in the West Indies, are almost exclusively terrestrial, visiting the sea only at given periods, for the deposition of their eggs. These Crabs carry in their gill-chambers sufficient water for the purpose of respiration; they live in burrows, and traverse considerable tracts of land in the performance of their migratory journeys. Of these, some, as the Violet Crab, are exquisite delicacies.

Of a great Crab migration we find these details in the "Jamaica Royal Gazette:"--In 1811 there was a very extraordinary production of Black Crabs in the eastern part of Jamaica. In June or July the whole district of Manchidneed was covered with countless numbers, swarming from the sea to the mountains. Of this the writer was an eye-witness. On ascending Over Hill from the vale of Plantain Garden River, the road appeared of a reddish colour, as if strewed with brick-dust. It was owing to myriads of young Black Crabs, about the size of the nail of a man's finger, moving at a pretty quick pace, direct for the mountains. "I rode along the coast," says the writer, "a distance of about fifteen miles, and found it nearly the same the whole way. Returning the following day, I found the road still covered with them, the same as the day before. How have they been produced, and where do they come from? were questions everybody asked, and nobody could answer. It is well known that Crabs deposit their eggs once a year, in May; but, except on this occasion, though living on the coast, I had never seen above a dozen young Crabs together; and here were myriads. No unusual number of old Crabs had been observed in that season; and it is worthy of note, that they were moving from a rock-bound coast of inaccessible cliffs, the abode of sea-birds, and exposed to the constant influence of the trade winds. No person, as far as I know, ever saw the like, except on that occasion; and I have understood that since 1811 Black Crabs have been more abundant further in to the interior of the island than they were ever known before."

Cuvier describes the Burrowing Crab as displaying wonderful instinct:--"The animal closes the entrance of its burrow, which is situated near the margin of the sea, or in marshy grounds, with its largest claw. These burrows are cylindrical, oblique, very deep, and very close to each other; but generally each burrow is the exclusive habitation of a single individual. The habit which these crabs have of holding their large claw elevated in advance of the body, as if making a sign of beckoning to some one, has obtained for them the name of Calling Crabs. There is a species observed by Mr. Bosc in South Carolina, which passes the three months of the winter in its retreat without once quitting it, and which never goes to the sea except at the epoch of egg-laying." The same observations apply to the Chevalier Crabs (so called from the celerity with which they traverse the ground). These are found in Africa, and along the borders of the Mediterranean.