Sphyrama barracuda; its Morphology, Habits, and History. 75 



form, Bullen (1904), speaking of New Zealand waters, says that "In 

 no other place have I seen the Barracouta swim in schools of hundreds 

 of thousands, almost as closely packed as mackerel." Ward (1907) 

 succinctly says that on the east coast of Australia it goes "in schools 

 which rival those of the herring and mackerel for numbers and dense- 

 ness." At Beaufort, North Carolina, the present writer has frequently 

 taken as many as a dozen of the young of S. borealis at one haul of 

 a 100-foot seine, and it may be that the young of the big barracuda 

 go in schools. 



However, so far as the present writer's experience goes, the large 

 fish are rather solitary, and such individuals are frequently to be found 

 lying motionless near the surface of the water around large coral heads 

 reaching nearly to the surface, around buoys, channel stakes, wharves, 

 wrecks, etc. One or more individuals could be found almost every 

 day of the season of 1912 "hanging around" our western dock at 

 Loggerhead. Three other kinds of fish had the same habit at the 

 same place, i. e., gars, gray snappers, and "minnows." The last two 

 kinds plainly came to get fish scraps from dissections and debris 

 thrown overboard by the cook and they were prompt in their attend- 

 ance. The gars, and in large degree the snappers also, fed largely on 

 the minnows, while the barracudas fed on all three indiscriminately. 

 Considerable sport was had shooting these gars with a 22-caliber 

 rifle, but after wounding or killing them none was ever secured, for 

 the barracudas snapped them up at once. However, in turn these 

 were often taken with baited hooks. 



The big barracuda has the interesting habit of herding its prey 

 either until it has digested its previous meal and again feels hungry 

 or because, being thoroughly savage and bloodthirsty, it enjoys the 

 game. Perhaps both conjectures are correct. A number of instances 

 of this sort have been noted. On June 9, 1912, off the southern coal 

 shed at Fort Jefferson, a 30-inch barracuda was observed to have a 

 small school of gray snappers herded in shallow water. Although I 

 went quite near them, they paid little attention to me but huddled 

 close together and as a flock moved one way or the other as the barra- 

 cuda moved. They seemed to be in abject fear of it and made no 

 effort to break away until I scared it off. In the same afternoon a 

 4-foot barracuda was observed under our eastern dock at Loggerhead 

 herding a big school of fishes comprising some 150 gray snappers 12 to 

 16 inches long, and numbers of yellowtails, grunts, parrot-fishes, 

 angel-fishes, surgeon-fishes, cock-eye pilots, etc. These hung around 

 the piles and swam among the rocks piled on the foundations of the 

 dock to strengthen it, and not one of them dared make a break for 

 liberty. A trolling spoon was procured and thrown out to the big 

 fish, whereupon he slowly backed off into deeper water, and then the 

 assembly broke up. 



