From physical terror to biological indifference: When the invisible enemy subdues the titans of the sea

“ Panting and snorting like a mad battle steed that has lost its rider, the masterless ocean overruns the globe.
Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began. ”

“ Since the fifth century B.C., humans have exploited marine resources. Aristotle, in his zoological works dating to the fourth century B.C., focuses his scientific interest on fish and invertebrates exploited by humans in various ways [201] . Fisheries in the Aegean communities by that period are characterized by variability both in the nature and abundance of the exploited fish and in the manner of their exploitation [202] . ”

“ Many succumb every season to a strange and deadly form of paralysis. Many more are eaten by sharks, drowned through getting their feet entangled in weeds, caught in crevices in the rocks while exploring the depths of the sea, or seized and devoured quickly by shoals of gigantic octopi—those ghouls of the ocean—which invariably infest the fishing-grounds. ”

“ The sharks play an important part in the life of the Chinese people, both of the coast and of the interior. The Yellow Sea is infested by the numerous species, and has acquired a dreadful celebrity among the fishing and sailing population. ”

“ Faring amidst high-swelling seas that rudely surge
⁠around.
And Earth, supreme of mighty Cods, eldest, imperishable.
Eternal, he with patient furrow wears and wears away
⁠As year by year the plough-shares turn and
⁠turn,—
Subduing her unwearied strength with children of the
⁠steed.
And wound in woven coils of nets he seizeth for his
⁠prey⁠I. 2
The aëry tribe of birds and wilding armies of the
⁠chase.
And sea-born millions of the deep—man is so crafty-
⁠wise. ”

“ The light-hearted boys are now hardened middle-aged men, if the seas, rocks, fevers, and the deadlier enemies that beset a sailor’s life on shore have spared them; and the then strong men have bowed themselves, and the earth or sea has covered them. ”

“ Knowing fully the peril of my act, I thrust the blunt-sharp end of my squid-stick into the side of the shark, much as one would attract a passing acquaintance with a thumb-nudge in the ribs. And the man-eater turned on me. You know the South Seas, and you know that the tiger shark, like the bald-face grizzly of Alaska, never gives trail. The combat, fathoms deep under the sea, was on--if by combat may be named such a one-sided struggle. ”

“ They see some wonderful sights down below the surface-plant life and creeping things and enemies innumerable. Dropping from the sun-scorched surface down into the deep cool waters, everything shows “a sea change, into something rich and strange,” just as the eyes of the drowned man in Ariel’s song are turned into pearls and his bones into coral.
And there are enemies innumerable. The terrible sharks, prowling about near the bottom, prove a source of perpetual uneasiness, and in the aggregate many fishermen are eaten by these bloodthirsty tigers of the sea. ”

“ While a species is conquering in one part of the world it is being subdued in another, and while its conquerors are indulging in their triumph down comes the fiat for their being culled and drafted out, some to life and some to death, and so forth ad infinitum. ”

“ The tail fin is small relative to the rest of the body. A row of modified scales extends on the back from the skull to the dorsal fin. Possibly they aided in streamlining the fish. Knightia apparently fed on the large amounts of plankton, especially algae, which lived in the waters of Fossil Lake. Fossils of Knightia are also known from Eocene lake sediments in South America.
Knightia appears to have been susceptible to mass mortalities. Some layers of shale at Fossil Butte contain literally hundreds of thousands of these fish that must have suffered catastrophic mass mortality. ”

“ The great majority of the aquatic algae, both freshwater and marine, are attached plants. Some, however, are wanderers, either swimming actively with the aid of cilia, or floating inertly as the result of a specific weight closely approaching that of the medium. ”

“ Down to the present generation, a rapid rate of reproduction has been the surest means possessed by any animal species of withstanding the enmity of man. Now scientific knowledge is beginning to triumph over both fecundity and small size. Mosquitoes have been exterminated by the wholesale in the canal zone. Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia have been successfully ransacked to find natural enemies that will hold in check scale insects, and codling and gipsy moths. A partially successful attempt has been made to inoculate rats with a disease that will kill them as cholera once killed men. ”

“ A burst of flashless automatic fire from somewhere up the ridge brought a scream from the soldier in front of him and sent him writhing down the slope. Tom lowered himself till he was on a level with the sight of his carbine, then started scanning the rise. A moment later he spotted the greenish glow of the sniper's infrared beam, and flipping the safety onto automatic, he squeezed the trigger. Rapidly he replaced the clip and waited. After several moments, he uncautiously flooded the terrain with his own light. A mere hundred feet away was a sprawling greenish form. One of the enemy. ”

“ Scepticism suddenly reared its head,—rather nervous scepticism, not at all assured of its back, but scepticism nevertheless. It is so much easier not to believe in an invisible man; and those who had actually seen him dissolve into air, or felt the strength of his arm, could be counted on the fingers of two hands. ”

“ If we do this, we shall travel not many miles from the shore in summer, wending our way through shrimps and lobsters, gurnards, cod-fish, soles, and turbot, before we may chance to come across a great Blue shark, with his slaty-coloured back and fins, swimming heavily but strongly through the water, and turning sharply from time to time to seize a passing fish, his white belly gleaming like a flash of light as it comes uppermost, and then disappearing again in the dark water. ”

“ After obtaining the meridional observation, we rounded the Cape, and steered between it and a patch of breakers which lie at the distance of a mile and a half from the shore: we were no sooner under the lee of the land, than the air, before of a pleasant and a moderate temperature, became so heated as to produce a scorching sensation; and to raise the mercury in the thermometer from 79 to 89 degrees. We were also assailed by an incredible number of flies and other insects, among which was a beautiful species of libellula. The sea swarmed with turtles, sea-snakes, and fish of various sorts ”

“ Off these islands we had much calm weather, during which we were surrounded by myriads of fish, of which sharks, and small whales, called by the whalers fin-backs, were the most conspicuous. The smaller kinds consisted of bonetas, barracoutas, porpoises, and flying fish. A voracious dolphin was harpooned, in the maw of which was a barracouta in a half-digested state, and in the throat a flying fish, bitten in half, waiting its turn to be swallowed ”

“ It was then loathsome beyond expression, and so far decayed that, as Peters attempted to lift it, an entire leg came off in his grasp. As the mass of putrefaction slipped over the vessel's side into the water, the glare of phosphoric light with which it was surrounded plainly discovered to us seven or eight large sharks, the clashing of whose horrible teeth, as their prey was torn to pieces among them, might have been heard at the distance of a mile. We shrunk within ourselves in the extremity of horror at the sound. ”

“ And during the ages that have passed since this bony race began, different branches each in their own way have thrown out curious weapons and developed strange organs to help them in the battle of life, so that now we have deep-sea fish carrying their own light; fish with distensible stomachs swallowing prey larger than themselves; fish with large air-bladders and long arm-fins springing out of their own element and floating in air; angling-fish, walking-fish, clinging-fish, and hiding-fish; and even those whose shape is distorted, like the sole, to enable them to hide and hunt in safety ”

“ Poor lobsters! they can't think where they have got to, and they are stretching out their long whiskers and looking about with their great goggle eyes, and the man who wants to sell them is shouting, 'Come, buy! come, buy! fine fresh lobsters alive, alive, oh!' All the fishmongers in London must be here, you would think, there are so many; and they buy the fish in great quantities, not as we do in the shops by the weight, but by the number—so much for each fish, whether it is big or little. ”

“ Pippies are the best bait one can have for whiting (except prawns) in Australia, for, unlike the English whiting, it will not touch fish bait of any sort, although, when very hungry, it will sometimes take to octopus flesh. Bream (whether black or silvery) , flathead, trevally, jew-fish, and, indeed, all other fish obtained in Australia, are not so dainty, for, although they like "pippies" and prawns best, they will take raw meat, fish, or octopus bait with readiness. ”

“ Green oysters are not always green, it is only after they are placed in the ‘claires,’ or fattening ponds, that they acquire the hue; they never occur in the open sea. The green colour does not extend over the whole animal, but is found only in the branchiae and labial tentacles, which are of a deep blue-green. Various theories have been started to explain the ‘greening’ of the mollusc; the presence of copper in the tanks, the chlorophyll of marine algae, an overgrowth of some parasite, a disease akin to liver complaint, have all found their advocates. ”

“ Possibly in some years none of the migrant butterflies reach our shores, and that it is largely to this failure the rarity of the species in such years is to be attributed. Caterpillars resulting from alien butterflies may absolutely swarm in the autumn of one year, but the eccentricities of an English winter may be too much for the vitality of such of them as escape their enemies, Apanteles glomeratus, and other so-called "ichneumons," and reach the chrysalis state. ”

“ The face before him was a meaningless blur, but he did not need to know the enemy to loathe him. His carbine was in his hands, the safety off, the barrel lowered, the trigger squeezed—but the rifle failed to fire.
The cry of the enemy was a wordless oath of anger, the bayonet a glinting sliver of death, the pain in his side the ultimate peak of agony. But as he fell back onto the rocks, he sensed something beyond rage in the bright young eyes of his destroyer. He sensed hope—the possibility of peace and even of happiness—for those anger-maddened eyes had been his own. ”

“ At 2-15 a.m. on the 16th the little remnant of the Brigade began to withdraw on relief, covered by small outposts. It then marched back to a camp near La Clytte, suffering numerous casualties on its route from shell-fire. Four machine-guns remained near Kemmel village. The enemy was now indulging in what were known to artillerymen as area bombardments, concentrating upon half a square mile of country for half an hour, then switching his batteries to another. Such methods are ineffective unless based upon an enormous mass of heavy artillery. ”

“ He opened his one remaining ration can, tore back the layers of thermofoil insulation, and started devouring the warm lamb stew. The dull staccato of automatic fire commenced far down the valley. Somebody screamed.
Tom contemplated his own flashless weapon, trying to recall what he had been taught about its principle of expulsion. That had been so far back. A year? Two? He did not remember.
It was time for the corporal to take over the watch, but Tom decided to give him another ten minutes. Wearily, he raised the binoculars to his eyes, pushed the switch. ”

“ Man's Land" a deep ravine, which the map contours show without giving an idea of its abruptness. The first wave of the 9th Irish Fusiliers reached this with little trouble, but those which followed met with very heavy machine-gun fire, and suffered terrible loss. Advancing at Zero with splendid dash, the survivors of a battalion which Colonel Blacker's training had made one of the best in the Division, swept through the enemy's front line trenches. ”

“ You are the only man except some of those fools down there, who knows there is such a thing as an invisible man. You have to be my helper. Help me—and I will do great things for you. An invisible man is a man of power. ”

“ A little child playing near Kemp's gateway was violently caught up and thrown aside, so that its ankle was broken, and thereafter for some hours the Invisible Man passed out of human perceptions. No one knows where he went nor what he did. But one can imagine him hurrying through the hot June forenoon, up the hill and on to the open downland behind Port Burdock, raging and despairing at his intolerable fate, and sheltering at last, heated and weary, amid the thickets of Hintondean, to piece together again his shattered schemes against his species. ”

“ VIOLENCE MAY FOREVER
REMAIN HISTORY"
Bullets splattered into the mound in front of the foxhole, sending a dense spray of dust and gravel into the pit. Tom spit out the mouthful of dirt and cursed.
"They comin'?" the soldier next to him asked, waking slightly.
"No." Tom told him gloomily. "But they know where we are."
"Maybe they'll try mortar. Think they'll try mortar?"
Tom shrugged. "Go on back to sleep. I'm watching."
The other was several years older than he, and a corporal, but not very bright. Still, it was better than being alone. ”

“ The receptionist made his appointment and he strode to the doorway. Already the horrors of a mere hour before seemed years in the past, and he wondered, as he proceeded down the steps into the same bright day he had left so long ago, how those vague and distant imaginings could possibly affect his future behavior. He readily admitted that he would be far less inclined to defend the concept of war than he would have been earlier. But surely it was possible that, under certain conditions, he might find himself in a situation where he had no alternative to violence. ”