Fish-Eating Weeds.

Manawatu Herald, 29 December 1892, Page 3

Fish- Eating Weeds.

Commander Alfred Carpenter writing from Suakim, Bed Sea country, contributes the following remarkable instance of a plant preying upon one of the verfeebrata. The instance noted was observed by him when surveying the Paracel Islands in the South China sea. " As I neared a pool cut off by the tide from the sea I noticed among other submarine plants a very ordinary looking flesh colored weed. Banding to inspect it closer, I noticed numbers of small fish lying helpless in its fronds, apparently with little or no life in them ,? M Putting my hand down to pick one of them up I found my fingers . caught by suckers on the weed, the fronds of which had closed tightly upon them. The fish had been caught in every conceivable way^by the/hesd, tail, sides, etc. — and ~--goißp' of them had been held until th<i skin was completely macerated. •» [Those of the fish that were still living had evidently been caught at different times, they appearing in all itages of exhaustion. I regret being unable to name either the plant or; J the. fish, hut that the bo- ,; tanical cannibal really preyed upon the finny denizens of the de«p there isn't the -least doubt."