from his capital to his frontier towns, leaving the completion of the link with India for the future.

It will thus be seen that there are grounds for believing that the imminent meeting between the Ameer's son and Lord Curzon, and the immediate despatch of a British mission to Cabul under the charge of Mr. Louis Dane, the Indian Foreign Secretary, will be attended by good results. There are some practical points to be arranged. They do not present any serious difficulty. The railway question may not be settled, but it will be brought nearer to settlement. On the other points The Fortnightly Review.

enumerated, definite and tangible conclusions and arrangements will be come to. The Ameer is not merely in an amiable mood; he has been brought by current events to see the necessity of making some change in his policy in order to provide against the perils of a near future. He has shown himself alive to the signs of the times, and at last it looks as if the Government of India were going to reap the reward of the patience and forbearance that it has displayed in all its dealings with Afghanistan during the last quarter of a century.

Demetrius C. Boulger.

The world of waters has ever been the scene of a strife without beginning and without end. The lives of fishes are a game of all against all, the weaker terrorized by the stronger and having recourse to all manner of tricks to escape destruction. Sometimes they stay out of reach, but this is not always possible. Alice's lobster talked in contemptuous tones of the shark when the sands were dry:

But when the tide rises and sharks are around

His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.

With the methods of self-defence adopted by fishes struggling on the hook or in the net anglers and fishermen have made us familiar. The Australian leatherjacket will swim up with the hook in its lip and with its sharp teeth sever the slack line above. The pollack will plunge headlong to the rocks and fray the cast against some handy shell of mussel or oyster. The blue shark twists in the water with

such rapidity as to test the bravest gear. The gray mullet, enclosed in the toils of the seine, will follow an enterprising leader over the edge of the net as sheep follow a leader through a hedge. Yet it is but yesterday, so to speak, that man invented his piscatus hamatilis et saxatilis, and thus added himself to the already long list of the enemies of fishes. More interesting, therefore, to the student of that class is the consideration of some modes of defence against natural enemies, such as have served fishes since the days when the weaker of them gave up the struggle and repose on the coprolitic deposits of the Rhætic beds.

The natural enemies of the fish are SO many and so varied that, like Ishmael, it knows well how to take care of itself when danger threatens. In its own class, often enough, indeed, in its own species, in a number of aquatic mammals and waterfowl, in snakes and amphibians, in insects and crustaceans, indeed in almost the lowest realms of life, the fishes have so

many foes that the wonder is that they are able to survive as a class. Indeed, great fecundity must be regarded as Nature's provision for the defence of the species, though it is with the defence of the individual that these notes concern themselves.

Anyone who would compare the defensive methods of fishes with those of terrestrial animals should first forin some idea of the different physical conditions and the peculiar environment in which they pass their lives. These include the dim light, diffused only from above, the aids to ambush in the shape of gloomy rock-pools, parti-colored ground, clouds of sand and curtains of seaweed, and the operation of tides, currents, and, in shallow water, sudden squalls, helpful or hindering according to the point of view. Then, as regards the fishes themselves, there are the gregarious and the solitary, the stationary and the migratory, those which burrow in the sand and those which hide among the rocks. Not one of these conditions, physical or biological, but has its direct influence on the animal's choice of defensive weapons when hard pressed.

Exposed as the class is, speaking generally, to the attacks of many and varied enemies, not all fishes have the same risks to run in life. The sharks and rays have obviously less to fear than the herring and the mackerel. The fishes which live on the bottom can clearly disregard the attacks of such marauding fowl as the gull and gannet, while even the cormorant and diver do not as a rule seek their prey far beneath the surface water. typical ground-dwellers of our seas, moreover, the flatfish, are so formed that, save when extremely small, they would in all probability choke any fowl so ill-advised as to try to swallow them whole. Yet these sand-dwelling flatfish have enemies of their own which the surface-dwellers can afford

The

to overlook, and these are the rays, which dig them out of their burrows with their pointed snouts and snap them up in their sharp teeth before they have time to alight again. The only chance of safety for a plaice or dab thus dislodged would be to swim above its enemy until the latter tired of the chase, much as an educated old rook will sometimes avoid a falcon by soaring higher and higher above it in the blue sky, the hawk being unable to strike its enemy except from above.

The simplest equipment for defence that we know exists in some form of protective armor. Both in stern warfare and at play man has adopted such aids to safety, and the helmet of the fencer, the pad and glove of the cricketer, or the more complete investment of the American footballer, are but the modern travesty of the old armor worn by knights on the field or in the tourney. Among fishes such armor is not common. In the mammals we find familiar examples in the spines of the hedgehog, in the quills of the porcupine, in the bucklers of the armadillo, or in the skin of the rhinoceros. The feathers of birds and the scales of some reptiles may also be regarded as armor. The scales of fishes, however, are in many cases too soft to afford much protection against the teeth of a determined foe, and we must, as regards living fishes, confine our admission of efficient armor to the sturgeons and some of the rays and sharks. The extinct buckler-heads, which were better armored than any recent forms, are considered to have been of low organization, and it is strange that so well-protected a group should comparatively early have given up the struggle. In a lesser degree, it is true, any equipment of spinous fins may be regarded as armor, and the dorsal fin in the bass and perch and spur-dog, as well as the sharp spines on the gillcovers of the weever and plaice and

dab, must undoubtedly serve to fend off attacks from above and on the flanks. Still, the possession of such isolated points of defence is to be compared rather to the handling of a sword or spear than to the wearing of armor such as, for instance, we find perfected in the crustacea. The cuirass of the lobster, the corselet of the prawn, the hauberk of the crab, all afford protection against the many teeth that appreciate the good things within. Nor would such "shellfish" easily die from any natural cause other than old age, were it not that Nature has imposed on them the necessity of periodically changing their suit of armor. is while growing the new that they are in their time of greatest danger.

It

These spines on fishes may be merely defensive, or they may be capable of active employment in inflicting serious wounds. The combination occurs in our weevers, which have a protruding black dorsal fin, doubtless of terrifying aspect as its owner lies motionless in the sand, and equally sharp spines behind the gill-covers, the latter furnished with grooved channels, along which is apparently conveyed a venomous secretion. The mechanism of the weever's spines has been erroneously likened to that of the adder's fang, but the poison bag and duct are wanting in the fish, nor, indeed, is its volition in the act of wounding quite satisfactorily established beyond all question. It is said to throw itself sideways and backwards, even when out of water, with such accuracy as instantly to stab the incautious finger that touches it. I do not cite against this the fact that of the many scores of living weevers that I have tested in this way with my boot not one displayed any such accuracy of marksmanship. Yet surely, if such a power is vouchsafed, it is for use in the water only under natural conditions. No one is going to make me believe either that Nature original

ly designed the weever to aim its stab out of water, or that inherited experience of handling by man has been sufficiently cumulative for the fish to acquire any such instinct in self-defence. The actual venom-sac, like that of snakes, though absent in the weever, occurs in a deadly little fish found in Sydney Harbor, and there known as the "fortescue." It is difficult to conceive of either the fortescue or weever as having many natural enemies, but the latter, at any rate, sufficiently resembles the dragonet and bullhead, both of them favorite articles of food with some larger fishes, to benefit considerably by its defensive weapons.

After all, however, the simplest form of self-defence is retreat. Protective armor is very well as far as it goes. Bluff, as the Americans call the art of imposing on the enemy's credulity, is at times even better. But best of all for the weaker-and defence, after all, belongs to the weaker-is a judicious and timely retreat-the sooner the better:

He who fights and runs away
Lives to fight another day;

but he who runs away first, without stopping to strike a blow, has a still better chance for the future. Such is the method adopted with some success by the launce and sand-eel, the rabbits of the sea, which burrow in the sand with great expedition on the approach of danger. Even when the fisherman is hungry for the best bait that swims, it takes a strong fork and a quick hand to dislodge these little cavedwellers from their lair. I doubt whether any of the larger fishes which prey on the sand-eels when they catch them would be able to dig fast enough, the rays alone, which hunt, as a matter of fact, after larger fish, having shovelshaped snouts sufficiently pointed for the purpose. The flatfish also find safety in the sand, though they rarely

submerge their head, trusting to their protective coloring, about which something has yet to be said, to dupe their watchful enemies.

There is the flight that seeks safety in distance from the pursuer, and there is the instinct that prompts the small boy, when threatened by a bully, to run for protection to a bigger fellow. This habit, which I do not remember to have noticed in either birds or reptiles, is seen in the pilot-fish, which cowers beside the shark, and in the little Fierasfer, which swims secure under the protecting bell of a medusa, not by any means as a noxious parasite, but rather as a grateful messmate, feeding on the small organisms suspended in the water. The mere outdistancing of a pursuer is constantly enacted in the world of waters under our eye, and I have watched hundreds of sand-eels escape in this way from the jaws of hake and bass. As seen, at any rate, in the aquarium, the larger fishes do not seem to persist in pursuit. Their plan is rather a sudden dash, and if that is fruitless they await another chance without going in pursuit.

Throwing dust in the enemy's eyes, as practised by the retreating cuttlefish with its cloud of "ink," which must in the still water have the same effect as a sudden fog in the London streets, has no parallel among fishes, though some of the flatfish feebly imitate the ruse by flinging up a little sand, under cover of which they manage to alight once more out of sight. A similar plan is also adopted by shrimps, which I have noticed behave in this manner when dislodged, resembling in their action grasshoppers suddenly disturbed on a dusty road.

Where it is a question of retreat and pursuit, the battle is to the swift. Some fishes, however, are not built for flight, and such as these must remain where they are, and trust either to not

being seen at all, or, if seen, to frightening their enemies by a simulation of a strength that is not theirs. These different manoeuvres involve two separate lines of action. The first is dependent on the aid of protective coloring.

In the aquariums of Plymouth, Brighton, and Naples I have seen turbot lying on sand, shingle, or concrete, and in each case the fish harmonized so well with its background that but for the movement of its respiration the human eye could not, I think, have distinguished it in a dozen feet of water.

To take full advantage of protective coloring an animal must remain perfectly motionless. Whether any animal, other than man, and particularly a fish, can hold its breath in moments of great danger, or whether, being able, it ever occurs to it to do so, I do not know; but certainly the breathing of these turbot alone betrayed them to the eye.

What measure of voluntary adaptation to the different backgrounds aforementioned there may have been in these turbot could not be easily determined, but I have certainly seen young examples of these species, taken by the late Matthias Dunn in a hand-net in the clear water off Pentewan, change within half an hour from their original whiteness to the blackness of the iron bucket to which they were presently transferred. Seahorses, too, particularly some of the Australian species, adapt their appearance wonderfully to the outline of the weed-fronds amid which they hide. Some of the skates and rays show similar protective coloring to that of the flatfish when lying on the bottom of their aquarium tanks, and them, too, the movement of the breathing-spiracles alone betrays.

The flat shape of the turbot and sole aids them in escaping notice when lying on the sand, and it is said that the distribution of the color, on the upper

surface only, still further contributes to this appearance of flatness.

The hiding of the dory, which is a vertical-swimming fish, depends on another optical illusion. So thin is the dory from side to side, so close do the fins lie to its sides, that, viewed end on, the fish vanishes to a thin line. I have repeatedly watched dory creep right on unsuspecting sand-eels beneath Bournemouth Pier in this fashion, and there can be little doubt that the hiding which serves to ambuscade a weaker but swifter victim will also on occasion serve to escape from a stronger enemy. Color protection is also observed in the cod, conger, and some other of our sea-fish which are captured on either rocky or sandy ground, those examples caught on the rocks being conspicuously darker than those whose abode is on the sand. The conger are, in fact, distinguished by the fishermen as "black" and "white" conger. Those who have bathed in Australian bays will recall a similar and very necessary distinction between "black" and "white" water, the latter being that with a background of sand which betrays the presence of dreaded sharks. Even the blue-and-silver herring blends so wonderfully with the ruffled surface-water that on a breezy, sunny day the individual fish can be distinguished only with the greatest difficulty.

Some among our fishes, however, are too conspicuous to hide with any hope of success. The screens of weed and walls of rock do not offer those aids to concealment which man finds in his artificially constructed dwellings, and hiding in the sea is a very different art from hiding in cities. Two conditions prejudice the success of hiding in such conditions: size and conspicuous shape or coloring, the last only, perhaps, in the shallow water, where the light penetrates to the bottom. Perhaps the largest and ugliest

stand the best chance in such a competition. The sharks and rays are less preyed upon than preying, so that their mighty size and exceeding ugliness are not, perhaps, of much service to themselves, rather helping their victims to see them in time and effect an escape. As regards other groups, our standards of beauty are not necessarily those of the fish critics, but it may perhaps be assumed that, even to the eye of a fish epicure, there can be nothing very appetizing in the appearance of such eerie creatures as the anglerfish, chimæra, lumpsucker, scabbard-fish, wolf-fish, red bandfish, or sunfish, to mention only a few of the uglier members of the British submarine commonwealth.

The darkness of night is, of course, in the sea as well as on land, some sort of protection for the feeble, but in both situations night-hawks are apt to profit by an illusion of security and to fall upon their victims under cover of a gloom that betrayed where it should have shielded. Conger, hake and other marauders are also on the prowl during the night hours, and against such of these as hunt by scent-and my own opinion is that fishes are wonderfully adaptive in this, being guided by eye or nose as circumstances dictate-the smaller kinds have a poor chance. There is another feeding-time, however, which is in many ways safer for the weak, and that is on the falling tide. Those who angle in tidal waters know well that it is on the flood that, with few exceptions, they get their best fish, but I have noticed that the smaller individuals, the pout and pollack and whiting, often bite best on the ebb. Thus they take their turn when their elders are resting, with the advantage over night-feeding that they can see their enemy before he is upon them.

So far, then, we have seen that fishes defend themselves by almost every method known to beasts and birds.