File:Fish stories alleged and experienced, with a little history natural and unnatural (1909) (14784349183).jpg

Identifier: fishstoriesalleg00hold (find matches)
Title: Fish stories alleged and experienced, with a little history natural and unnatural
Year: 1909 (1900s)
Authors: Holder, Charles Frederick, 1851-1915 Jordan, David Starr, 1851-1931, joint author
Subjects: Fishes
Publisher: New York, H. Holt and company
Contributing Library: Harvard University, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Ernst Mayr Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Harvard University, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Ernst Mayr Library

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to the surface andgulps air until it is almost as round as a ball. Then it floats,belly upward, on the water and is safe from all harm, sofar as fishes are concerned. But it offers a tempting markfor the spear. And if a hole is punctured into it and theair let out, it looks as foolish as a fish can look as it sneaksaway. But if it lives the next chance it has it will do the samething again. The thresher shark, also called fox shark and swingle-tail, lives in all warm seas the world over, and being a wiseshark, often comes to the shores of Southern California. Itreaches a length of twelve to fifteen feet. Its head is small,with a short nose, and its teeth are small and sharp. Itsmost striking quality is its great length of tail, the longflail-like upper lobe being almost as long as the rest of thebody. It is a swift shark, rather active and destructive tosmall fishes, but it gets a good deal of credit for actions itnever performs. Sometimes a whale is seen in great agony off the coast,
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A TUNA CARRYING JIM GARDNER UNDER WATER. See page 255. Little Stories of Strange Fishes 327 rolling and pitching and splashing, with some monster at-tached to its side. It is commonly believed that it is thethresher shark which is responsible for all this, and one ofthe current tales in fish mythology is the one that describesthe thresher and the swordfish hunting whales together.The thresher is supposed to fasten itself on the whale andflail him to death with his great tail, while the swordfishpricks him with his spear from below. Sometimes in thesestories the saw-fish is also introduced—a harmless creaturethat never ventures out into the open where whales arefound. In all these stories, there is this much of truth: The greatkiller, orca, itself a sort of whale, and the most greedy ofbeasts, attacks its larger brethren, biting out large massesof flesh. Several of them may attack a whale together.The whale rolls over and over, sometimes taking the killerswith it through the air. Th

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