Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIV.djvu/764

 738 SEAMAN SEA PORCUPINE above the wages then due, three months' wages, of which two thirds are paid to the saaruan, and one third retained by the consul and remitted to the treasury of the United States, to form a fund for the maintenance of American seamen abroad and for bringing them home. If repairs to the ship become necessary, or if the ship is captured, the sea- men may hold on for a reasonable time await- ing the prosecution of the voyage ; and if dis- charged before this time has elapsed, they may claim their extra wages. The discharge of a seaman for good cause, like disobedience, misconduct, or disability by his own fault of extreme degree, may be authorized by our consuls or commercial agents in foreign ports. If the ship is unseaworthy, the shipping arti- cles are violated by the master, or the sailor is subjected to cruel treatment, he may be dis- charged by a consul and recover his three months 1 pay. If the master discharges the seaman, against his consent and without good cause, in a foreign port, he is liable to a fine of $500 or six months 1 imprisonment, and the seaman may recover full indemnity for all loss or expense incurred by such discharge. It is an ancient maxim of the maritime law that freight is the mother of wages, so that where no freight is earned no wages are earned. But, more properly speaking, wages are earned whenever freight is or might be earned, for the sailor ought not to and does not lose his dues when the ship fails to earn freight oh ac- count of the fraud or wrongful act of the mas- ter or owner. Nor will any special contract between the owner and the freighter, varying the obligation to pay freight from that implied by the general law, have any effect upon wages. If the voyage is broken up, or the seamen are dismissed without cause before the voyage be- gins, they have their wages for the time they serve, and a reasonable compensation for spe- cial damages. In cases where the voyage is broken up by misfortune, so that the master would be justified in discharging the crew, they are still entitled to their wages. So a seaman has full wages if he is compelled to desert by the cruelty of the master, or if he is disabled by sickness, even if, by reason of that sickness, he was obliged to be left at a foreign port. Seamen have a lien for their wages on the ship and freight. Statutes give the same lien to fishermen on shore. It attaches not only to ship and freight in re, but to the proceeds of both or either, and follows them into whose hands soever they may go. It prevails over bonds of bottomry and other like hypotheca- tions, because the services of the sailor save the ship for all claimants. Pilots, engineers, firemeu, and deck hands are seamen, and have this lien, and so have all persons whose service is materially and directly useful to the naviga- tion of the vessel. A seaman cannot insure his wages, nor derive any benefit from the insu- rance effected by owners on ship or freight. It ia the policy of the law, for obvious rea- sons, to make the sailor find all his interest in the security and welfare of the ship. SEA MOSSES. See POLYZOA. SEA NETTLE. See ACALEPH.E, and JELLY FISH. SEA PIE. See OYSTER CATCHER. SEA PORCUPINE, a common name of the os- seous fishes of the order plectognathi (with comb-like gills), family diodontidce or gymno- donts, and genera diodon, tetraodon, &c., so called from the spines with which the body is studded. This order, which contains the sun fish, trunk fish (see TRUNK FISH), and file fish, has the internal skeleton partly ossified, and the skin covered with ganoid scales or spines ; the maxillaries and intermaxillaries are wholly or in part united, and the upper jaw in most is immovably fixed to the cranium ; there are no pancreatic craca, no well developed ventrals, no duct to the air bladder, and only vestiges of ribs. In the family of gyrnnodonts the teeth are incorporated with the bone of the jaws, and resemble a parrot's beak with or without mesial division, their plates consisting of hard dentine adapted for bruising and cutting the crustaceans, mollusks, and sea weeds upon which they feed. The skin is thick, leathery, and armed with spines which stand out in every direction when the body is inflated by filling with air the stomach, or more properly a large sac beneath this organ communicating with the oesophagus ; the air is forced into this sac by swallowing ; when thus distended the fish loses all command over its fins, and rolls over belly upward, floating at the mercy of the wind and waves ; as it is a considerable time before the air can be sufficiently expelled to allow the fish to resume the full control of its movements, many are caught in this helpless condition ; they emit a blowing sound when taken, from the expulsion of the air ; the tail is short and feeble; the spinal cord, according to Owen, is very short. Some of the family have no ex- ternal openings to the nostrils, the nerve of smell being expanded on cutaneous tentacles. The flesh of some is poisonous. They are very tenacious of life, on account of the small size of the gill openings, and have a disagreeable odor which is retained even in alcohol for years; they are mostly inhabitants of tropical seas, and are rarely more than 2 ft. in length, with the diameter of the inflated body more than half of this. In the genus diodon (Linn.) there is no mesial division of the jaws, and the teeth are apparently only two ; the spines are long, thin, sharp, with two root-like processes, and capable of erection. There are nine spe- cies, of which three are described by Mitchill as occurring on the coasts of the United States, under the name of balloon fishes ; these are the D. maculo-atriatus, about 6 in. long, greenish spotted and striped with dark ; the D. pilosut, smaller, with most of the body furnished with soft, flexible bristles of a golden color; and the D. verrucotus, with a warty and spiny skin. The atinga (D. hystrix, Bk>ch), of the East In-