BENEATH TROPIC SEAS 



questionably the young of ladyfish, Albula vulpes. 

 There were none of the common eel, nor of the 

 tarpons. I was mterested in a six-spotted, rather 

 rounded, opaque type of larvae and found that it 

 was an undeveloped lizardfish, Synodus foetens. 

 Closely resembling this was a small species of 

 anchovy which was usually seen singly, but on 

 the night of March twenty-eighth appeared in 

 several schools of five to eight thousand. Their 

 whole actions and manner were totally unlike the 

 isolated individuals. They moved with perfect 

 synchronization, although raked again and again 

 by marauding herring and voracious jacks. Often 

 the school drew out into an oval, but usually the 

 formation was an almost perfect sphere, moving 

 swiftly forward until those in front touched the 

 light, when the thousands would turn as one fish 

 and roll away. 



Close upon the arrival of the small fish each 

 night, came the larger predaceous forms, schools of 

 herrings which kept well down, flashing up now 

 and then to seize a victim. By the fifth night I 

 had to fight for my specimens. A school of eleven 

 big-eyed jacks, Caranx latus, had established itself 

 beneath the hull of the schooner, and as soon as 

 the submerged light was turned on, they hunted 

 along that side from stem to stern. The third 

 night they had become so bold that they got fish 

 long before I could reach them with the scoop net. 

 I threw them a hook, caught one, and all the 

 rest vanished. So this was my procedure every 



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