Field, who saw the sight while fishing near the Channel Islands with Peter le Nowry, the pilot. Having searched for this passage several times, without being able to find it, I am reluctantly compelled to quote from memory. They were fishing off Guernsey, when Mr. Lowe called Peter's attention to several porpoises, which seemed to he engaged in a water-frolic, swimming after one another in a circle. "That is no frolic, but very sober earnest for the sand-eels," said Peter. "Now," he continued, "I will show you a sight which I have only chanced to see two or three times in my life, and you therefore are very lucky to have the opportunity of seeing it at all. There is a great shoal of sand-eels yonder, and the porpoises are driving them into a mass; for, you see, the sand-eel is only a very small morsel for a porpoise, and to pick them up one by one would not suit Mr. Porpoise, who would get hungry again by the time he had done feeding on them singly; so they drive them into a thick crowd, in order that when they make a dash at them they may get a dozen or two at a mouthful. But, as we want some for bait, we will join in the hunt." And they edged down to the spot till they were within the circle. The porpoises, following one another pretty closely, were swimming round, now rising to the surface, now diving below, and gradually contracting the circle. The terrified sand-eels were driven closer and closer, and in their fear came to the surface all about the boat; and, just as two or three porpoises made a dash into the crowd, snapping right and left, the fishermen plunged their nets into the water, and brought them up quite full of these little fish. Of course the shoal soon broke up and dispersed, but the skill with which the skäll was conducted and the beauty of the sight were much dilated on by Mr. Lowe, and it must have been a very interesting one.
There are many fish which hunt their prey singly, as the pike and trout, and the way in which a large pike or trout will course and run down a smaller fish resembles nothing so much as a greyhound coursing a hare. Now the unhappy little fish turns from side to side in its efforts to escape, while its pursuer bends and turns to every motion, following close upon his track, and cutting him off exactly as a greyhound does a hare. Now he rushes among a shoal of his fellows, hoping to be lost sight of in the crowd and confusion; but the grim foe behind is not to baffled or deceived, and, singling him out and scattering the small fry, which fly in all directions, ruffling the surface of the water like a sudden squall of wind in their fright, follows up his victim with unerring instinct. In an agony of terror the poor little quarry springs again and again frantically from the water, only to fall at last exhausted into the gaping jaws of his ravenous foe, who, gripping his body crosswise in his mouth, sails steadily away to his lair, there to devour his prey at leisure. Other fish hunt their food like dogs or wolves in packs, as does the bonito chase the flying-fish, and one perhaps of the fiercest, most savage, and resolute of these is the Piräi, of South America. So fierce and savage are these little pirates,
