26 SEA FISH OF TRINIDAD 
also remarked en passant that it is one of the finest table 
fish in these waters. 
The Tarpon or Grand-écatlle. The famous “Silver King”’ 
as he is commonly called in the Gulf of Mexico and Florida is 
very plentiful in Trinidad waters, especially at the river 
mouths, the rocks and reefs of the Bocas, and all points and 
headlands round the coast. The best season for fishing 
them, may be said to range from the end of June to the be- 
ginning of November. Although I consider both the car- 
angue and king-fish to be more game as to their fighting quali- 
ties than the tarpon, the latter fish is far ahead of the others 
in point of wiliness and general cunning. He is the Machia- 
velli of the finny tribe, his manceuvres at and round the bait 
are protean. At one time he will hit the bait with a rush, 
directly he feels the hook, executing a tiger-like spring from 
the water into the air, in all probability ejecting the hook at 
first jump, especially if it has taken him in the top jaw or 
palate where it cannot possibly find secure hold on account of 
the bony plates there. On another occasion he will hit the 
bait with a similar bang, and drop it at once like a naughty 
boy at a runaway ring of the door-bell. Other times he will 
swim round the bait giving it occasional little light tugs, or 
more imperceptible sucks. Even when fairly hooked in the 
lower jaw, after making three or four springs in the air and 
finding them ineffectual, he will float on top of the water 
foxing, pretending he is exhausted, evidently hoping the 
fisherman will haul him in, until he gets on the wire when he 
will make a fresh rush and kink it, after which he can easily 
break it and get away. Even when gaffed and put in the 
boat he must be speedily stunned with a club or he will jump 
out again. The local fisherman have a proverb to the effect 
that “the grand-écaille is never dead until he is in the pot.” 
I have known a large tarpon hooked in Huevos Bay, and 
played with a rod until the fisherman thought he was ex- 
hausted, and as it was inconvenient to put him in the boat, 
the conqueror resolved to tow him home to Domus Bay, 
Monos, across the Second Boca, a distance of at least a mile 
and a half, but on arriving at Domus, when attempting to 
beach him he actually got away, although to all appearances 
