BARRACUDAS, REMORAS AND OTHERS 171 



hesitate to attack bathers, and cannot be scared off by splashing 

 the water as is generally the case with sharks. Moreover, the 

 extraordinary ease and rapidity with which their lithe bodies 

 slip through the water makes it almost impossible to detect 

 their approach. 



The Sieur de Rochefort, writing in his ' Natural History of 

 the Antilles ', published in 1665, says : " Among the monsters 

 greedy and desirous of human flesh, which are found on the 

 coasts of the islands, the Becune is one of the most formidable. 

 It is a fish which has the figure of the pike, and which grows to 

 6 or 8 feet in length and has a girth in proportion. When it 

 has perceived its prey, it launches itself in fury, like a blood- 

 thirsty dog, at the men whom it has perceived in the water. 

 Furthermore, it is able to carry away a part of that which it 

 has been able to catch, and its teeth have so much venom that 

 its smallest bite becomes mortal if one does not have resource 

 at that very instant to some powerful remedy in order to 

 abate and turn aside the force of the poison." Writing in 

 1707, Sir Hans Sloane observes that "it is very voracious, 

 and feeds on Blacks, Dogs, and Horses, rather than on White 

 Men, when it can come at. them in the water ". Pere Labat, 

 in 1742, confirms this curious prejudice of the Barracuda 

 against the flesh of the white man, and adds another sur- 

 prising fact : " But a thing rather surprising," he writes, 

 " yet one which is however of public notoriety, is that these 

 same fish more often attack an Englishman than a Frenchman, 

 when they find them both together in the water." He goes 

 on to explain that the hearty, meat-eating habits of the 

 Englishman as compared to the dainter feeding of the French- 

 man produce a stronger exhalation in the water to attract 

 the nostrils of the Barracuda — an explanation which savours 

 more of national prejudice than of scientific accuracy ! 



Attacks of Barracudas on human beings have been sum- 

 marized by two American scientists in a paper submitted to 

 the American Medical Association, and this makes grim reading. 

 After discussing the general fear of these fishes among the 

 natives of the Carribbean region, the nature of the wounds 

 made by their jaws, and the fact that they tend to hunt 

 by sight rather than by smell, they add the somewhat more 

 comforting statement that " while the barracuda, attracted 



