34 THE TARPON 



lagoons, including willets, greater yellowlegs, herons, 

 stilts and several species of sandpipers. Dr. Jamieson and 

 I made a haul with the seine in the same place and secured 

 a heavy load of tarpon. Tee-Van and Crosby took good 

 still and motion pictures of the process. 



''When we counted our catch on shore, we found 154 of 

 the young fish, from three to seven inches in length. One 

 individual measured thirteen inches. Several times as 

 many tarpon as we took escaped by leaping over the top 

 of the seine as we were pulling it, some of them rising 

 three feet clear of the surface. We threw back all but the 

 few which we wished to keep as specimens. 



*'My third visit was two months later, after heavy 

 storms had set in, on March 21. Birds were abundant, in- 

 cluding a pair of black-necked stilts, which we shot for 

 specimens ; a flock of greater yellowlegs, two great blues, 

 four Louisiana herons and a half dozen or more coots, 

 while a flock of eight blue-winged teal got up as we 

 approached. 



"I found the lagoon dike broken through and the tide 

 pouring into a three-foot sluiceway. A thorough seining 

 of the first lagoon netted six tarpon, measuring from four 

 and a half to seven inches, together with a two-inch snook. 

 Ultimate hauls failed to secure another fish of any kind. 



"A seine haul in the second lagoon yielded four small 

 mojarras, recent emigrants from the open water outside. 

 The water-boatmen were as abundant and the sulphur 

 smell quite as strong as ever, in spite of the infiltration of 

 the water from the Gulf. 



"The most interesting development of this last haul of 

 young tarpon was that when we examined five of the fish 

 in aquariums on the schooner, we found that there was 

 something the matter with their eyes — a gray, translucent 

 film clouding the tissue of the lens or the humor behind it, 

 the aspect being wholly unlike the appearance of the eyes 



