A TARPON NURSERY IN HAITI 



again. For a number of days in succession this 

 great silver fish would swim toward me on my 

 first submersion, and pass slowly within eight 

 or ten feet, looking me over. When I learned 

 that this would probably happen every time I went 

 down, I devoted all my attention to estimating his 

 exact length. Once he swam past two very tall 

 tube sponges, and I could see distinctly that he 

 overlapped the distance between them in actual 

 body length, not including his tail. I measured 

 this distance and found it six feet, three inches. 

 So even ignoring the slight overlap, he was a full 

 six feet in length of body. He showed no fear, 

 only a gentle curiosity, rolling his great eye about 

 as he passed. His scales reflected the light, even 

 at a depth of twenty -five feet, as a dazzling sheet 

 of bluish silver. 



I could learn of no tarpon being caught on a 

 hook in Haiti, although anglers have made many 

 attempts. The native fishermen were familiar 

 with them, and, as I have said, occasionally found 

 them in their seines. 



The food of the young tarpon consisted entirely 

 of the aquatic hemiptera which filled the waters of 

 the lagoon, a five-inch fish having the remains of 

 sixty -eight of these insects in its stomach. The 

 relative increase in various body measurements 

 from a three-inch, through an eight-inch, to a forty- 

 inch individual, is remarkably uniform, the average 

 of the characters of length, depth, head and eye 

 being 9.6%, and 19.8%, as compared with an 



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