THE TARPON 35 



of the fish taken two months before. They seemed to be 

 quite blind. Whether this affliction was connected with 

 their remaining- in the lagoon after the hundreds or thou- 

 sands of their fellows had escaped to the open Gulf can 

 be only surmised. It could hardly have interfered with 

 their feeding, as the water-boatmen were present in un- 

 counted millions, and a single scoop with a quart jar 

 secured large numbers. 



* * # 



^'A few tarpon, from 6 to 8 inches long, have been taken 

 on the north shore of the Gulf of Mexico in Florida, and 

 L. L. Babcock, in his excellent monograph of the tarpon, 

 records a three-inch specimen taken in a cast net on the 

 coast of Texas. He also gives the world's record tarpon 

 as 8 feet, with an estimated weight of 350 pounds. This 

 was taken in a net by Florida fishermen. 



''My discovery of young tarpon in a land-locked lagoon 

 m Haiti suggests that the Porto Rican record is not a 

 casual accident, but a usual phenomenon in the life of 

 these fish. On account of the shallowness and the muddi- 

 ness of the Haitian lagoon, it would be impossible for an 

 adult tarpon of any size to enter it and deposit her eggs 

 We can only surmise that the eggs are scattered out in 

 the waters of the Gulf, sink to the bottom and hatch and 

 that the young, either as leptocephalids or as very small 

 larval fish, make their way into the lagoon before the sea 

 son when it becomes cut off from the Gulf. Here they live 

 and thrive, with an abundance of food, sheltered from 

 voracious fish, and other dangers of the open sea, havin- 

 to guard only against the keen eyes and sharp beaks of 

 the larger herons and such unthinkable catastrophes as 

 visiting scientists. * * * 



"One of my Haitian fishermen took two good-sized 

 tarpon m his seine not far off shore from Source Matelas 

 ihese were thirty-six pounders, more than forty-one 



