Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1889-04-13
CAPTURE OF A DEVIL FISH.
Ths Parasites Who Travel with the Mon.
seer-A Troublesome Follow.

fhs Parasites who Travel with the Mon.
sssr-A Trooblssous Follow.
We are indebted to the Rev. w. @.
Bourchier, r. N, chaplain to II. M. y.
Comus, in the West Indies, Tor the sketch
Of this incident, accompanied by the fol-
lowing account Of II.
"As 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 It 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 wero con-
veyed 10 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 for nm hour and half and
seemed to require some looking after, q
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 better name.
''He was secured with sharp hook
by a gallant midshipman and was then
harpooned; the rope in which no was en-
tangled was cut, and he was slowly
towed 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 a thing
Of beauty but an awe inspiring monster
Of tho deep. There lay tho great fish,
like giant black bat, with his hugo
wings extended on the deck, measuring
across, from tip to tip, 10 feet A inches.
The other dimensions were: Breadth Of
mouth horizontally, 8 feet; length from
head to end Of tail, 10 feet 8 inches;
length Of tail alone, 8 feet. But Il was a
puzzle at first to find out where his
mouth was placed.
"'I have 1t, SIR cried blue jacket in
great glee; and, what Is more, he has
fish in this dinner Is therer As he
spoke he opened pair Of great black
lips, rather to ono side Of tho fish,
thought, and below these lips was a
white cavity, largo enough to contain
ones head. And there was fish, sure
enough. inside it, but this little fish was
alive; he bounced out, 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 found another mouth,
with another fish in 1t, alive and well,
and this fish, too, came out and skipped
on deck between our legs. Then it
dawned upon us that these small fishes
could never have been, eaten by the big
devil fish; and further examination
showed that each Of them had fiat
plate on the back Of its head; 1t looked
as II they had held on to something by
this sucker, and 1t proved that so they
do. We put them In bucket Of water,
and they hung on to the sides Of It with
the back of their heads SO vigorously
that tho hardest pull could not
shift their position, much less dis
lodge them; though when the bucketwa
emptied, they came off its side at touch.
The small fishes had clung to the devil
fish as 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 one
would an oyster. What is his food can
not tell, for after had finished sketching
him, and before had well begun dis
secting him, orders weregiven 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 deadly en-
brace and sinking with him to the depths
below; and this may be true enough, but
the Manta 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 moorings,
and setting them adrift, and when pur-
sued--a favorite pastime when they were
more 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 tho coast Of Venezu-
ella, where they are common and grow to
tho size Of twenty feet broad. Illus
xrotal np1np Mara