through mouth and gills. The taste was disquieting to a small fish that had never tasted blood or experienced the lust of the hunter.
When at last pursued and pursuers had passed, the thudding vibrations of the last carnage-mad bluefish were stilled and Scomberâs sense cells received once more only the messages of the strong, steady rhythms of the sea. The little mackerelâs senses were numbed by the encounter with the swirling, slashing, buffeting monsters. It was in the bright waters of the surface that he had looked upon the racing apparitions, and now they had passed he made his way down from brightness into green dusk, led down fathom by fathom by the reassuring quality of the gloom which concealed whatever terrors might lurk near by.
With the descent Scomber came into a cloud of feed, the transparent, big-headed larvae of a crustacean that had spawned in these waters the week before. The larvae moved jerkily through the water, waving the plumelike legs that sprang in two rows from the slender bodies. Scores of young mackerel were feeding on the crustaceans and Scomber joined them. He seized one of the larvae and crushed its transparent body against the roof of his mouth before he swallowed it. Excited and eager for more of the new food he darted among the drifting larvae; and now the sense of hunger possessed him, and the fear of the great fishes was as though it had never been.
As Scomber pursued the larvae in emerald haze five fathoms under the surface he saw a bright flash sweep in a blinding arc across his sphere of vision. Almost instantly the flash was followed by a second blaze of iridescent glitter that curved sharply upward and seemed to thicken as it moved toward a shimmering oval globe above. Once more the thread of the tentacle crept down, all its cilia ablaze in the sunlight. Scomberâs instincts warned him of danger, although never before in his larval life had he encountered one of the race of Pleurobrachia, the comb jelly, the foe of all young fishes.
Of a sudden, like a rope swiftly uncoiling from a hand above, one of the tentacles was dropped more than two feet below the inch-long body of the ctenophore, and thus swiftly extended it looped around the tail of Scomber. The tentacle was set with a lateral row of hairlike threads, as barbs grow from the shaft of a birdâs feather, but the threads were filmy and tenuous as the strands of a spiderâs web. All the lateral hairs of the tentacle poured out a gluelike secretion, causing Scomber to become hopelessly entangled in the many threads. He strove to escape, beating the water with his fins and flexing his body violently. The tentacle, contracting and enlarging steadily from the thickness of a hair to that of a thread and then to that of a fishing line, drew him closer and closer to the mouth of the comb jelly. Now he was within an inch of the cold, smooth-surfaced blob of jelly that spun gently in the water. The creature, like a gooseberry in shape, lay in the water with the mouth uppermost, keeping its position by an easy, monotonous beating of the eight rows of ciliated plates or combs. The sun that found its way down from above set the cilia aglow with a radiance that half blinded Scomber as he was drawn up along the slippery body of his foe. In another instant he would have been seized by the lobelike lips of the creatureâs mouth and passed into the central sac of its body, there to be digested; but for the moment he was saved by the fact that the ctenophore had caught him while it was still in the midst of digesting another meal. From its mouth there protruded the tail and hinder third of a young herring it had caught half an hour before. The comb jelly was greatly distended, for the herring was much too large to be swallowed whole. Although it had tried by violent contractions to force all of the herring past its lips it was unable to do so and had perforce to wait until enough of the fish was digested to make room for
When at last pursued and pursuers had passed, the thudding vibrations of the last carnage-mad bluefish were stilled and Scomberâs sense cells received once more only the messages of the strong, steady rhythms of the sea. The little mackerelâs senses were numbed by the encounter with the swirling, slashing, buffeting monsters. It was in the bright waters of the surface that he had looked upon the racing apparitions, and now they had passed he made his way down from brightness into green dusk, led down fathom by fathom by the reassuring quality of the gloom which concealed whatever terrors might lurk near by.
With the descent Scomber came into a cloud of feed, the transparent, big-headed larvae of a crustacean that had spawned in these waters the week before. The larvae moved jerkily through the water, waving the plumelike legs that sprang in two rows from the slender bodies. Scores of young mackerel were feeding on the crustaceans and Scomber joined them. He seized one of the larvae and crushed its transparent body against the roof of his mouth before he swallowed it. Excited and eager for more of the new food he darted among the drifting larvae; and now the sense of hunger possessed him, and the fear of the great fishes was as though it had never been.
As Scomber pursued the larvae in emerald haze five fathoms under the surface he saw a bright flash sweep in a blinding arc across his sphere of vision. Almost instantly the flash was followed by a second blaze of iridescent glitter that curved sharply upward and seemed to thicken as it moved toward a shimmering oval globe above. Once more the thread of the tentacle crept down, all its cilia ablaze in the sunlight. Scomberâs instincts warned him of danger, although never before in his larval life had he encountered one of the race of Pleurobrachia, the comb jelly, the foe of all young fishes.
Of a sudden, like a rope swiftly uncoiling from a hand above, one of the tentacles was dropped more than two feet below the inch-long body of the ctenophore, and thus swiftly extended it looped around the tail of Scomber. The tentacle was set with a lateral row of hairlike threads, as barbs grow from the shaft of a birdâs feather, but the threads were filmy and tenuous as the strands of a spiderâs web. All the lateral hairs of the tentacle poured out a gluelike secretion, causing Scomber to become hopelessly entangled in the many threads. He strove to escape, beating the water with his fins and flexing his body violently. The tentacle, contracting and enlarging steadily from the thickness of a hair to that of a thread and then to that of a fishing line, drew him closer and closer to the mouth of the comb jelly. Now he was within an inch of the cold, smooth-surfaced blob of jelly that spun gently in the water. The creature, like a gooseberry in shape, lay in the water with the mouth uppermost, keeping its position by an easy, monotonous beating of the eight rows of ciliated plates or combs. The sun that found its way down from above set the cilia aglow with a radiance that half blinded Scomber as he was drawn up along the slippery body of his foe. In another instant he would have been seized by the lobelike lips of the creatureâs mouth and passed into the central sac of its body, there to be digested; but for the moment he was saved by the fact that the ctenophore had caught him while it was still in the midst of digesting another meal. From its mouth there protruded the tail and hinder third of a young herring it had caught half an hour before. The comb jelly was greatly distended, for the herring was much too large to be swallowed whole. Although it had tried by violent contractions to force all of the herring past its lips it was unable to do so and had perforce to wait until enough of the fish was digested to make room for
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