MY FiailT WITH THE DEVILFISH 



007 



were made fast to the licad of tlie fish 

 and anchored to a tree two hundred 

 yards inland, and I then appHed a very 

 powerful device, using man power at the 

 end of a long lever, not unlike the horse 

 power device used in pulling stiunps, 

 and slowly the big devilfish came up out 

 of the sea. 



I had ready fifteen hundred pounds of 

 plaster of Paris, many bales of excelsior, 

 and a number of barrels of fresh water. 

 I had also erected a twenty-foot tower 

 from which to take photographs and I 

 attempted to hoist the parts of the fish 

 on this tower for weighing; but my 

 weighing device was not sufficiently 

 powerful for obtaining acciu'ately the 

 weight of such a large specimen. The 

 entire day was devoted to making the 

 cast and to preserving parts of the speci- 

 men in three hundred gallons of formalin 

 solution. 



From the time that T first struck the 



fisli on the nioruing of April 11, until the 

 photographing, casting, and preserving 

 of the fish were completed on the night 

 of the twelfth, there had been no time 

 to att(>nd to anything else; btit on the 

 thirteenth, with a feeling of intense 

 satisfaction, I sent by boat to Punta 

 Gorda a telegram to the American Mu- 

 seum of Natural History telling of the 

 successful issue. 



The next few days were devoted to 

 making crates and packing the cast in 

 excelsior. The parts of the specimen 

 were also taken out of formalin solution 

 and packed in excelsior which had been 

 dippetl in formalin. The big thirty-five- 

 foot timbers and the rollers were then 

 used in loading the crates on a large 

 l)oat which had been brought in as close 

 as possible to the beach, and I and my 

 whole crew accompanied them to Punta 

 Gorda and assisted in loading them on a 

 car, addressed to the American Museiun. 





Tliis drawing by Mr. Albert Operli gives an impression ofoui- pliusc of the devilfish liunt. Kelative dimensions 

 of both fish and men are accurately recorded. The wounded fish, in its rush to the surface, finds the boat on its 

 back: each man is in his appointed i)lace, and the lance is about to be planted 



