CAUGHT BY A DEVIL FISH.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 252, 31 October 1878, Page 6

CAUGHT BY A DEVIL FISH.

One of our American contemporaries gives an account of an afctack on a man by a so-called " devil-fish." It appears that Mr Smale, a diver, engaged at the Moyne Eiver, Belfast, Australia, had fired off a charge of dynamite, and displaced a large quantity of atones at the bottom of the river. He went down to prepare for lifting these stonea. While engaged in rolling over a large stone, he saw something which he supposed at the time was a piece of cleanlooking kelp moving about in front of where he was working. In a few seconds this object came in contact with the diver's arm, about which it quickly coiled, partly holding him. Immediately Mr Sma'e touched what was coiled round his arm he became aware of his position, and strove to extricate himself from the grasp of a fi sea-devil," but found it a far more difficult job than he anticipated. Catching hold of the part hangiug from his arm, he walked along the' bottom of the river towards the end of it, when he was firmly held by one of the feelers of a large octopus. Mr Smale tried to pull the fish off from its hold of the rocks, but without effect for some, time. At last the fish, thinking perhaps it had not sufficient hold or power upon its prey, loosened itself from the stones, and quickly transferred its feelers or arms around the diver's legs and body. In this position Mr Smale thought the best thing for him to do was to get on deck as soon as possible, and he quickly made tracks for the ladder which reached from the deck of the punt to the bottom of tbe^ river. The diver was

certainly a curious-looking object when he came up. This huge, ugly- looking thing appeared to be entangled all over him, holding him in a firm, embrace However, Mr Smale's fellow-workmen were not long in freeing him from the unfriendly hug of his submarine companion. Mr Smale declares it was powerful enough to keep three men under water.