Show DSPMN11 H HSERMEN APPEAL TO rUE FRENCH OVERNMENT Extraordinary Plague of Cuttlefish Ruining the Industry I f on the Normandy CoastSwarms Brought Up with y4 Every Haul of the Net Catalo Dec 22 riiaroah and hlo I KTyptlans in theic greatest hour of ¼ allllclijn were not worse plagued than 6 4 J the fishermen of the French coast are being plagued now They arc the vic P tims voC n most extraordinary Invasion or cuUleflsh cblhlng equal to which has been seen here within the memory off of-f I living man They bear only a slight 1 resemblance to the devilfish ot Victor Hugo fiction The fishermen would u wish that they were more like this creature of Hugos for the monster who mode Ills odious appearance Jn Toilers oC the Sea woi a terror of I retiring manners and not given to intruding I in-truding on the fisher folk when they were pursuing their own peaceful calling 1 call-ing These cuttlefish offact differ from those of fiction In that they are small the biggest not being more than fifteen pounds In weight biit what they lack In size they make up in numbers tenacity ten-acity and aggressiveness The whole BOA seems to bo I alive with 1 them Where once the illustrious Jlsheiman could hope to bring up in his nets a plentiful supply of fish he can now make sure only of bringing to the surface a struggling strug-gling mass of snakelike tentacles and a heap of hideous spongelike bodies From the depths of the net a horrible horri-ble commotion comes the swarming writhing squirming mass emits an inklike l liquid with an overpowering odor and the wriggling lontocka stretch out In all directions feeling for something to grasp Once the tentacle winds Its coils around the leg or arm of an unwatchful fisherman nothing win make it let no until the tentacle Is severed with a knife While the nets are being hauled up the cuttlefish frequently fre-quently breaks through the meshes and when the side of the boat Is cached a hundred tentacles will stretch through the net and grasping anything that affords a hold sock to delay tho passage 1 pas-sage to tht deck of the boat So powerful pow-erful are the posts that IL always becomes be-comes a question I of cutting loose the clinging limbs or breaking the nets for loose their hold the unwelcome visitors will not To make them do so the fishermen at first out loose the Untarli with axes and knives l fastened to the end of polep As fast however as a dozen tentacles would be severed to drop into the sea a score would reach out and secure ft trash hold so that hours might lu spent fruitlessly In fighting the cuttlefish In this way Tt was then de < ldd to try boiling water and this was fotiiidto be the most effective way of making tin cuttlefish let go his hold But Imagine the annoyance and loss of tune In the fishermen who are thus fored to spend hours fighting the cuttlefish cut-tlefish plague when they should be hauling In netsful of succulent fish Nor do the troubles of the fishermen end vhqn J tfcey ttave 1 hauled the nets to deck The cuttlefish have shown the most remarkable tenacity to life Nothing Noth-ing will kill them but to cut oft their heads hcado i > o fir no death ban been reported In the dally encounters with the plague but It Is easy to predict what would happen were a fisherman to haul up a netful of these horrible creatures without with-out having at hand the necessary mecni to fight them They attack fearlessly fear-lessly and a dozen of the largest size would give an ablebodied man a particularly par-ticularly bad half hour even If they did not succeed by repeated Attacks III pulling him down and crushing him In their loalhesomo folds The fishermen can give no reason for the unwelcome visitation The content themselves l with killing as many of the cuttlefish as they can and hopln that some dov the last will be killed But the swarm seems to constantly grow In size and the fishermen are crying out for relief from the plague that threatens to ruin them Their appeal has reached the Government and a reward re-ward will probably be offered for some means of ridding the Normany coast of the cuttlefish How this can be accomplished accom-plished without injury to the fish which would make the cure worse than I the disease has not so far been discovered discov-ered It has been suggested that the haunt of the cuttlefish be sought by divers and that a concerted attack be made upon them by using explosives In adjacent waters This remedy may seem a peculiar one but the emergency Is one quite out of the ordinary The cuttlefish are not altogether a waste product of the sea although considered con-sidered such a pest by the fishermen Their bones are used for making po mace and tooth powder for forming molds for silver castings for polishing and for other purposes in the arts Formerly the carbonate of lime In the cuttlefish was used as a medicine to correct acidity In the stomach but better bet-ter remedies have superseded It for this pin pose The Ink of the cuttlefish mulshes the t valuable pigment called pepla which is remarkably Indestructible Indestructi-ble Whatever use science may find for the cuttlefish however the fishermen of the Normandy coast would gladly supply anything to rid their fishing waters of this horrible plague |