it difficult to understand how they escape certain death from his lancet-shaped teeth, unless the shark entertains a friendly feeling for them.
This propensity of the pilot-fish has been utilized by the Colymbians, who train packs of them in order to scent out the quarry and guide the bold hunters to their huge game.
White sharks in these regions attain to a prodigious size. Specimens have been killed nearly forty feet long, with such capacious mouths that it would be easy for them to swallow a man at one gulp.
Raising the door that closed one of the tunnels, we all, including the pilot-fishes, which danced merrily before us, passed through the tunnel and emerged into the ocean beyond.
The appearance of the water beyond the barrier is quite different to what it is within the reef. There, as I have said, it is not very deep, and the bottom is composed of corals, astræas, madrepores, and seaweeds. But beyond the barrier at this point we came almost at once into water so deep that no bottom could be seen, and we looked down into a dark blue void which reflected no light from its depths. The appearance looking upward was also quite different. There was the circular opening with its thin prismatic border through which the sky was visible and any seafowl that might be flying overhead, but beyond the circular opening all was like a dark mirror, reflecting nothing but the white bodies of those of our party who were at a little distance from me.
As soon as we had gained the open sea, the pilot-fish left off their gambols and set themselves seriously to their work. They kept pretty close together and proceeded to hunt the water like well-trained pointers.
