It Is A
Marvellous Thing To Think How God Hath So Provided For These Fowls In
So Vast An Expanse Of Sea, That They Are All Fat.
The Portuguese have
named them all, according to some obvious property.
Thus they call some
_rushtails_, because their tails are small and long like a rush, and not
proportionate to their bodies; some _fork-tails_, because their tails
are very broad and forked; others again _velvet-sleeves_, because their
wings are like velvet, and are always bent like a mans elbow. This bird
is always welcome, as it appears nearest the Cape. I should never have
an end, were I to tell you all particulars, but shall touch on a few
that may suffice, if you mark them well, to give cause for glorifying
God in his wonderful works, and in the variety of his creatures.
To say something of fishes: In all the places of calms, and especially
in the burning zone near the line, there continually waited on our ship
certain fishes, called _tuberones_[401] by the Portuguese, as long as a
man, which came to eat such things as might fall from the ship into the
sea, not even refusing men themselves if they could light upon any, and
if they find any meat hung over into the sea, they seize it. These have
waiting upon them continually six or seven, small fishes, having blue
and green bands round their bodies, like finely dressed serving men. Of
these two or three always swim before the shark, and some on every side,
[whence they are called _pilot fish_, by the English mariners.] They
have likewise other fishes [called _sucking fish_] which always cleave
to their bodies; and seem to feed on such superfluities as grow about
them, and they are said to enter into their bodies to purge them, when
needful. Formerly the mariners used to eat the sharks, but since they
have seen them devour men, their stomachs now abhor them; yet they draw
them up with great hooks, and kill as many of them as they can, thinking
thereby to take a great revenge. There is another kind of fish almost as
large as a herring, which hath wings and flieth, and are very numerous.
These have two enemies, one in the sea and the other in the air.
[Footnote 401: Evidently sharks, from the account of them. - E.]
That in the sea is the fish called _albicore_, as large as a salmon,
which follows with great swiftness to take them; on which this poor
fish, which cannot swim fast as it hath no fins, and only swims by the
motion of its tail, having its wings then shut along the sides of its
body, springeth out of the water and flieth, but not very high; on this
the albicore, though he have no wings, giveth a great leap out of the
water, and sometimes catcheth the flying fish, or else keepeth in the
water, going that way as fast as the other flieth.
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