, 1889-04-23
CAPTURE OF A DEVIL FISH.
The Parasites Who Travel with the Mon
stsr-A Troublesome Fellow.

The Parasites Who Travel with the Mon.
ster-A Troublesome Fellow.
We are indebted to the Rev. w. C.
Bourchier, R N, chaplain to II. M. s.
Comus, in the West Indies, for the sketch
of this incident, accompanied by the fol,
lowing account of it
A her majesty's ship lay at anchor
in English harbor, Antigua, the little
barrel like buoy that marks the place OF
the anchor, to which 1t is fastened by a
four inch rope, was observed TO plunge
about and splash, diving under the water
and disappearing. Reports of this un-
seemly behavior of our buoy were con-
veyed to the officers, who treated them
with the cautious suspicion that such an
unlikely story seemed to deserve. By !
o'clock In the afternoon, when the buoy
had danced forisn hour and n half and
seemed to require some looking after, a
boat was dispatched to its assistance. The
cause of the disturbance was then mani
fest A huge devil fish had got foul of the
buoy rope, and there he was, struggling
away, about six feet below the surface
of the water, with two good turns of the
rope around one of his mouth fins, as /
may call them for want of a better name.
He was secured with n sharp hook
by a gallant midshipman and was then
~harpooned; the rope In which he was en-
tangled was cut, and he was slowly
lowed alongside and was hoisted on
board.
when he was laid on the deck we had
an ample opportunity of admiring his
vast proportions. He was not q thing
Of beauty but an awe inspiring monster
of the deep. There lay the great fish,
like a giant black bat, with his huge
wings extended on the deck, measuring
across, from tip to tip, 10 feet 4 inches.
The other dimensions were: Breadth of
head to end of tail, 12 feet 8 inches;
length of tail alone, D feet. But it was a
puzzle at first to find out where his
mouth was placed
al have it, sir cried a blue jacket in
great glee; and, what is more, he has n
fish in this dinner is thereT AS he
spoke he opened a pair of great black
lips, rather to one side Of the fish, l
thought, and below these lips was n
white cavity, large enough to contain
ones head. And there was q fish, sure
enough, inside 1t, but this little fish was
alive; he bounced out, q fish the size of q
small herring, and skipped furiously
about the deck between our feet. There
were more wonders presently, when an
other blue jacket fouSld another mouth,
with another fish in 1t, alive and well,
and this fish, too, came out and skipped
on deck between u legs. Then it
dawned upon us that these small fishes
,rnt,ll nnwar IA va hnnn nntan hu tho htD
devil fish; and further examination
showed that each of them had a flat
plate on the back of its head; it looked
as II they had held on to something by
this sucker, and it proved that 30 they
do. We put them In n bucket of water,
and they hung on to the sides of 1t with
the back of their heads 80 vigorously
that the hardest pull could not
shift their position, much less dis
lodge them; though when the bucket was
emptied, they came Off its side at a ouch.
The small fishes had chung to the devil
fish rs his parasites; not feeding on him,
for they left no mark behind, but using
him for their travelling habitation. The
cavities In which they lodged were his
nostrils. Meanwhile, we discovered the
real mouth of the devil fish, three feet
across, lying between these cavities. This
enormous mouth Is quite toothless; the
devil fish sucks down his food as M
would an oyster. What is his food can
not tell, for after 1 had finished sketching
him, and before I had well begun dis
secting him. orders were given to heave
him overheard, as he was making the
deck filthy with the streams Of blood that
continued to flow from his dead body.
"Stories have been told of the devil fish
taking q luckless swimmer between his
great fins, folding him In q deadly en-
brace and sinking with him to the depths
below; and this may be rue enough, but
the Mania Diabolus, or Manta Birostris,
as he is scientifically called, is said to feed
only on sea weed. At the same time he
Is troublesome and even dangerous, fond
of meddling with the mooring of fisher
mems boats, as he did with our m~oorings,
and setting them adrift, and when pur-
sued-afavorite pastime whenthey were
moro plentiful at Port Royal-turning
upon the boats, and, If not quickly dis
patched, capsizing them. / have often
seen these fish leap out Of the water-an
amazing sight-on the coast of Venezu-
ella, where they are common and grow to
the size Of twenty feet broad. illus
trated London News.
Poor Illustrations