On the 24th of May, the day before crossing the equator, I saw the grandest display of all these different kinds of fish which it has ever been my fortune to meet with.  In my journal, written on that day, I find some things related of which I have scarcely any recollection, and certainly have never witnessed since.  A bonito, it appears, darted out of the water after a flying-fish, open-mouthed, and so true was the direction of his leap that he actually closed with the chase in the air, and sought to snap it up; but, owing to some error in his calculation, the top of his head striking the object of pursuit, sent it spinning off in a direction quite different from that which his own momentum obliged him to follow.  A number of those huge birds, the albatrosses, were soaring over the face of the waters, and the flying-fish, when rising into the air to avoid the dolphins and bonitos, were frequently caught by these poaching birds, to the very reasonable disappointment of the sporting fish below.  These intruders proceeded not altogether with impunity, however; for we hooked several of them, who, confident in their own sagacity and strength of wing, swooped eagerly at the baited hooks towed far astern of the ship, and were thus drawn on board, screaming and flapping their wings in a very ridiculous plight.  To render this curious circle of mutual destruction quite complete, though it may diminish our sympathy for the persecuted flying-fish, I ought to mention that on the same day one dropped on board in the middle of its flight, and in its throat another small fish was found half swallowed, but still alive!

All this may be considered, more or less, as mere sport; but in the capture of the shark, a less amiable, or, I may say, a more ferocious spirit is sure to prevail.  There would seem, indeed, to be a sort of perpetual and hereditary war waged between sailors and sharks, like that said to exist between the Esquimaux and the Indians of North America, where, as each of the belligerents is under the full belief that every death, whether natural or violent, is caused by the machinations of the other side, there is no hope of peace between them, as long as the high conflicting parties shall be subject to the laws of mortality.

In like manner, I fear, that in all future times, as in all times past, when poor Jack falls overboard in Madras roads, or in Port Royal harbour, he will be crunched between the shark’s quadruple or quintuple rows of serrated teeth, with as merciless a spirit of enjoyment as Jack himself can display.  Certainly, I nave never seen the savage part of our nature peep out more clearly than upon these occasions, when a whole ship’s company, captain, officers, and young gentlemen inclusive, shout in triumphant exultation over the body of a captive shark, floundering in impotent rage on the poop or forecastle.  The capture always affords high and peculiar sport, for it is one in which every person on board sympathises,