FISH IN THE RED SEA.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3603, 29 January 1883, Page 4

FISH IN THE RED SEA.

'' The only place where one cannot got fish is at sea," has no meaning for the voyager between Aden and Suez. " The Red Sea is the exception that makes the rule, for there ia not a clay, or even an hour, that fish of one kind or another are not to be seen from the deck of a steamer homeward or outward bound, and, provided the vessel is not going too fast, caught and brought on board, too, Dolphin, albacore, bonita, barracouta, fly-ing-fish, and porpoises abound, and at certain seasons fleets of Arab fishing-boats make immense catches of fish, which are salted and carried inland; but a distinctive fish of the Red Sea, and more especially of the upper part of it, in the Gulf of Suez, is the Red Sea salmon. The godfather—or god-mother perhaps—of this handsome fish is unknown, but any one who has seen the fish dead, or, better still, in the act of rising at a spinning bait, will say that it looks well deserving of the royal name bestowed upon it. It is only at table that the Red Sea salmon discredits its illustrious sponsor, the king of fishes ; for, if the truth must be told, its flesh is very little superior to that of the English bass. When I was returning home from India last November I saw such a boatload of these splendid fish brought on board at Suez as would make any angler's mouth water. There were twenty or thirty of them, ranging, I should say, from forty-five or fifty pounds down to twenty, and cleaner, handsomer, or more gamelike fish I never anywhere saw, not even in the Shannon. Unfortunately, the vessel was in strict quarantine, so that it was impossible to find out much about the fish—where they were caught, in what way, and by whom. All I learn about them was that they had been sent from shore for the steward's use, and that the fishermen about Suez caught lots of them, probably in nets. Whether these arc the fish which produce a phenomenon observable in the Red Sea or not, I cannot say, but think it likely enough that the Red Sea salmon is often responsible for it. What I allude to is the extraordinary "swarms" of large fishes one meets every now and then in a voyage up the Red Sea. A swarm of this kind—it can scarcely be called a shoalmay be known from afar by the flocks of pure white sea-gulls hovering over the spot. By and by, and as the ship draws near, the place presents the appearance of breakers, or broken white water, in the midst of the deep blue. Later on, if the spot happens to be in the vessel's course, a hissing noise like that of boiling water is heard, and as ■we pass quite close it will be observed that the turmoil is produced by a vast number of large fishes darting , round and round in a circle, perhaps fifty yards in diameter, say. They are probably after food: by the number of sea-fowls screaming and excited overhead ; but it is not flying fish that they are in pursuit of, as an old "salt" averred, nor do I think the pursuers in question are bonita, though I see in Mrs Brasscy'shook, "Sunshine," that something similar was Beenfroin the Sunbeam in the 3lcditcrranean. The fishes, so far as they can be made out in tho swirl they create by their rapid movements, do not look as large as the bonita I have caught in the same sea, but whatever they are, the idea of dropping a well baited hook in the waltz of the fishes is too entracing, if only one could follow the dance about in a small boat at one's own sweet will and pleasure. The native fishermen along the African Coast must make tremendous hauls when they get into one of these remarkable "swims," for the fish go round and round, but do not seem to progress onward at a greater rate than three or four miles an hour. — London Field.