Giant Fish of Florida 



tail leaping high in the air, then merely touching the water 

 again like a ricocheting shell and again soaring aloft, a series 

 of such leaps taking it quite a hundred yards over the surface, 

 is, to say the least of it, a novel spectacle to those just out from 

 Europe, the seas of which do not afford these apparitions. It 

 is as if the monster fish were suddenly tenanted by the 

 wandering spirit of a defunct kangaroo, and when it is added 

 that its aerial leaps often bring it quite close to the boats 

 though I do not remember hearing of a single case in which it 

 actually jumped into one it will be seen that there is some 

 excuse for the occasional signs of alarm evoked by its sudden 

 appearance. The splash with which it regains the water can, 

 on still days, be heard quite a mile away. 



The swimming action of these great rays is very beautiful, 

 displaying all the graceful undulating movements so character- 

 istic of the shark tribe, which go so far towards mitigating the 

 repulsive appearance of some of them. There is always this 

 striking contrast between the live and dead shark ; the one, 

 though endowed with instincts that can never commend it to 

 our goodwill, is yet a very lithe and graceful' robber ; the 

 other, deprived of all life and movement, shows only the vices 

 with none of the redeeming beauty. 



A more characteristic pose of the rays, however, is that of 

 lying motionless, or, at most, with its disc slightly undulating with 

 respiration, on the sand just under water. Sometimes, indeed, 

 they are found lying a yard or so above low-water mark in pits 



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