The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 470, January 8, 1831 by Various
page 45 of 56 (80%)
page 45 of 56 (80%)
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muscle must be in this class of animal. I have seen them spring out of
the water within ten yards of the ship's side, generally in the evening, after having swam all the former part of the day in the ship's _wake_, or on either quarter. When several of these fish take it into their heads to dance a "hornpipe," as the sailors have termed their gambols, at the distance of half a mile they, especially at or just after sun-down, may easily be mistaken for the sharp points of rocks sticking up out of the water, and the splashing and foam they make and produce have the appearance of the action of the waves upon rocks. An officer of the navy informed me, that after sunset, when near the equator, he was not a little alarmed and surprised (because quite unexpected) at the cry of "rocks on the starboard bow:" looking forward through the dubious light (if the expression may be admitted,) he indistinctly saw objects which he and all on board took to be the pinnacles of several rocks of a black and white colour: in a short time, however he discovered this formidable danger to be nothing more than a company of dancing grampuses with white bellies: as one disappeared, another rose, so that there were at least five or six constantly above the surface! The uncertainty attending the visual organ during the continuance of the _aurora_ and of the _twilight_, must have been noticed by all those person's who have frequented the ocean. Most sailors have the power of eye-sight strengthened from constant practice, and from having an unobstructed view so generally before them; yet I have known an officer, who was famous for his quickness of sight, declare that in the evening and morning he found it difficult to retain sight for more than a second or two at a time, of a strange sail; at night, even with an inverting glass, his practised eye could retain the object more steadily. |
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