A LIVING FISHING LINE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 41, 17 February 1879, Page 4

A LIVING FISHING LINE.

(From the " Popular Educator."

Down hmonpst tlie •seaweed stems and pointed recks wo p. revive a loo.?, Wm-k, tangled strin-.', like a giant's leather hoot-'nee eet to eohk. Let ug trace it in its vnrious folds and twiets and disentangle some of is ; we ehall tbf*n have a 1ou«h, slippery, india-rubber-like substance; which might well he pronunced a sea-string and classed with the long trailing "weeds amongst which wo have found it. A sea-sit ing it is, but not a weed , in fact, a living taseo, capable of consuming the prey it encloses within its treacherous fol.la. From twenty to thirty feet is no uncommon length for tbis artful animated fishing line to reach, but its diameter rarely exceed* on eighth of an inch. It has a mouth, however, capable of considerable distension and holding power. What can appear more innocent than this delicute-iookiog cropper, trailing here and tbern as the hfaviog water swells and fljws as tlie tide comes in ? Let an unwary tube-dweller, lulled into a false security, etretch forth ite tenacles to meet the welcome wave, and a pointed head is adroitly insinuated' The mouth effects the tenacious grasp on the yielding tWsues, and tbe tenant of the tube becomes food for the Nemertes Borlaesi, for euch is the Damp of this cord-like freebooter, "Mr Kingsley appears to have taken wore than ordinary interest in the habits of this strange creature. Speaking of if, be inquires—" Is it alive ? It bangs, helpless and motionless, a mere velvet string, acrossa the hand. Ask the neighboring annelids, and the fry ef the rock fisheß; or put it in a vase at home, aod see. It lies motionl^s, trailing itself among (be gravel. You cannot tell where it begins or ends. Jt «oay be a strip of dead sea-weed Rimnnthalia lorea, perhaps, or Chorda jHum—or even a tarred string, j-o thinks the little fiab who plays over and over it, till be touches at tast what is 100 aurely a head. I D an instant a bell snapped Backer mouth has fastened to its side; in another instant, from one lip a concave double proboscis, just like a tapir's (another instance of the repetition of torms), has clasped him like a fioger.

" And now begins tbe struggle; but in vain. He ia being 'played' with such a fishing-rod as the skill of a Wilson or a Stoddart never could invent, a living line, with elasticity beyona that of the moat delicate fly-rod, which follows every lunge, shortening' and lengthminiz, slipping and twi3ticg round every piece of gravel aod stem of a a weed with a tiring dra^ sucb as no Biului-d wiiat or etfp couid ever bring to bear on tbe salmon or trout. The victim is tired now, and slowly yet dexterously his blind > senium is feeling and st-ilting along his side till he renches one end of him; and then tbe LLtk lips expand, and slowly and •urely tbe curved fi. g^r begins packing bim head foremoit down into the gullet, where he sinks inch by incb, till the swelling whicb mirks bis place is lost among the coils, and he is probably macerated into a pulp' long before be has reached the opposite extremity. Once safe down, the blsck murderer •aontracia into a knotted heap, and lies like a boa with a stag inside him, motionless and blest."