Sphyrcena barracuda; its Morphology, Habits, and History. 97 



bodied and daintier-feeding Frenchman, will "produce an exhalation 

 of corpuscles whose odor is more penetrating, which scatter farther, 

 and which strike more on the organs of these animals." This con- 

 clusion he backs up by quoting the cannibal Caribs that the flesh of 

 an EngUshman is more appetizing than that of a Frenchman. He 

 also declares that the Carib trackers can follow an EngUshman or a 

 negro through the forests more easily than a Frenchman by simply 

 smeUing of their tracks, and by the odor can distinguish the nation of 

 the track-maker. Then he argues that if this is so for men, why 

 should it not hold also for the fishes. 



Just what to make of this the present writer does not know. The 

 whole matter depends on the strength of the sense of smell in fishes. 

 This, in sharks at any rate, is quite acute. By pouring blood or by 

 hanging overboard a carcass (the more decomposed the better) sharks 

 may be readily enticed up current or up tide. This the present writer 

 has done (1912). The odor from the negro is very offensive to the 

 white man, and I have been told that to the Chinaman the odor of the 

 white man is just as distasteful. As Labat says at the close of his 

 discoui*se, each must be left free to make up his own mind as to the 

 value of this conjecture. 



Catesby's remarks (1754) on the danger to bathers of this fish are 

 brief but to the point. ''It is a swift-swimming and very voracious 

 fish, preying on most others; and some of the largest size have fre- 

 quently attacked and devoured men as they were washing in the sea." 

 While Brown (1756), without specifically saying so, indicates his 

 knowledge of similar habits on the part of the Jamaican fish. 



BuUen (1904) quotes the apocryphal stories current throughout 

 the West Indies as to the diabolical ferocity of the barracuda and ends 

 by giving an eye-witness account of the fear of this fish which is uni- 

 versal throughout these islands. A pair of can-hooks had been lost 

 overboard in 40 feet of water, and for a small reward a band of 8 

 negroes, swimming about the vessel and paying no attention to some 

 sharks in the near vicinity, endeavored to recover these. All went 

 well until the cry of "couter," ''couter," was raised, whereupon bed- 

 lam broke loose. Crazed with fear, the negroes fairly climbed over 

 each other to come aboard by the help of ropes flung out to them. 

 BuUen adds that even when safe on the ship "their demoralized, 

 panic-stricken condition was painful to witness." If the reader will, 

 in this connection, examine Bullen's well-drawn figures of the barra- 

 cuda (reproduced herein opposite page 55) and the other figures given 

 in this paper of the head and jaws, and will recall the cold ferocity 

 of this fish, he can better understand the truth of this story. 



Holder (1908) had in his employ many years ago as guide and fac- 

 totum on the outer Florida Reef a typical reefer who went by the 

 common name "Barracuda." Because he was an expert at taking 



