190 Sporting Sketches 



Powerful, carnivorous, seemingly insatiable, a 

 school of mature bluefish is worse than a pack of 

 wolves so far as wanton destructiveness is con- 

 cerned. The wolf will slaughter, gorge, and sleep 

 till again hungry, but the fish seems to slay for the 

 mere lust of slaughter. Close observers have 

 claimed that a blue bravo will cram himself to the 

 jaws with food, then eject it all and resume the 

 slaughtering and stuffing and repeat again and 

 again. While not disputing it, there may be an 

 explanation of such outrageous voracity in the fact 

 that the fierce grip of blue jaws is apt to cut a soft 

 victim in two and the floating section to be mis- 

 taken for a part first swallowed, then ejected, by the 

 destroyer. 



Murderous and senseless as such an attack seems 

 at first glance, it may be, most likely it is, one of 

 Nature's wise provisions for the welfare of her feebler 

 folk. The wasteful, snapping blues may leave their 

 long trail littered with unsavory mess, may drive 

 the terrified mossbunkers in crowds upon the deadly 

 sand, but who follow ? The keen-eyed gull and 

 wheeling tern can read " sign " from afar. They 

 know the veering ripple which marks the flight of 

 the jammed mossbunkers and why silvery forms 

 shoot above the surface, or strand upon the beach. 

 They know the blue terror merely as a lovable, 

 philanthropic gentleman, who, in the great goodness 

 of his heart, fares forth for sport where they may 

 see and kindly leaves them fair share of his quarry. 

 In such cases, a lot may depend upon the point of 

 view possibly even upon the point of view of the 

 miserable mossbunker. Yet who is a greasy moss- 



