Sphyrcena barracuda; its Morphology, Habits, and History. 79 



falls off. At the same time the peak halyards are let go, so that the boat's 

 way is deadened and the fishermen ply their poles energetically. If they have 

 struck a school, the fish rise and fall into the boat with rythmical regularity, 

 every sweep of the bait into the water securing its fish." 



The method, of attracting the fish by means of a lure and catching 

 it by means of a spoon or a wliite rag on a hook, undoubtedly owes its 

 success to the large inquisitiveness and utter fearlessness of the fish. 

 To this desire to strike at anything flashing through the water, Bullen 

 accredits the frequent loss of patent-log screw propellers, which are 

 trailed behind vessels to give the rate of speed and register the dis- 

 tance traveled. This has been confirmed by Dr. A. G. Mayer in 

 conversation with the present writer. 



On rare occasions one of our laboratory men, all of whom were more 

 or less expert with the gi'ains, v/ould ''strike" a specimen. Thompson 

 (1905) says this may be easily done; but we found the fish too wary 

 for much success along this line unless its attention was distracted, as 

 was the case of specimen No. 11 previously described. 



Holder in another book (1908) gives an interesting account of how 

 a boatman of his named "Barracuda" used to take the fish of the same 

 name with the grains. Trolling a white rag behind his rowboat as a 

 lure, he would scull the boat into the sun. In this way the fish would 

 face the sun and be dazzled by it, while the striker would have his 

 back to the luminary with everything behind the boat clearly illu- 

 mined. When the fish was thus brought within range of the grains, the 

 boat would be suddenly stopped, and as the fish, still watching the lure, 

 would forge slightly ahead on one side, the grains would be thrown. 



FOOD AND FEEDING. 



This fish is as strictly carnivorous as the shark, although hardly so 

 indiscriminate in its choice of flesh. So far as my observations and 

 dissections go, it is wholly a piscivore, feeding entirely upon other 

 fishes. It is not meant to convey the idea that it will refuse other flesh 

 food, but that left to itself its staple food is fish. In this I am happily 

 coiToborated by Linton (1910), who found in the stomachs of ten 

 Tortugas specimens, collected in the summers of 1906, 1907, 1908, no 

 other food than fishes. 



With regard to the food of the big barracuda and the condition in 

 which it is taken in, dissection of fish No. 12 (55 inches long) gave 

 valuable data. Its stomach was enormously distended and, when 

 opened, was found to contain some 5 pounds of fish in large fragments, 

 surrounded with a lot of smaller fragments and topped off with the 

 latter half of a fair-sized Margate grunt in a rather advanced stage of 

 decomposition. The fish merely chops up its prey and swallows the 

 large fragments whole. 



Holder (1903) found that the barracuda could be taken onl}^ wdth a 

 bait of shining-sided fish, and that it scorned all other baits, including 



