Giant Fish of Florida 



been given. It must, of course, be distinguished from the 

 swordfish, which is more closely allied to the mackerel, and 

 which has a long pointed weapon without teeth on its edges. 



Any one wishing to catch a sawfish on the rod must seek 

 such weird game in the isolated deep holes in the lagoons and 

 shallows. The average depth will not be more than three or 

 four feet, but every now and then the lead will igo down into a 

 much deeper hole, and there lie the sawfish. A well-known 

 American angler caught one weighing 700 Ib. in this way. The 

 chief food of the sawfish is said to consist of horseshoe crabs, 

 but it also in all probability slashes round with its great saw 

 and stuns sufficient fish for a meal. I have seen young saw- 

 fish out there with the scales of smaller fish impaled on the 

 teeth of their saws. Evidently these teeth must grow blunt 

 with age, for piercing a fish scale is a feat that would certainly 

 be beyond the saw-teeth in all the larger specimens that have 

 come under my notice. 



On an earlier page I have given the portrait of a baby 

 hammerhead shark, drawing the reader's attention to the fact 

 that the " hammer " was not yet developed. This difference 

 in two stages of growth may be appreciated by a comparison 

 with the subject of the accompanying photograph, in which the 

 curious hammer, with an eye at either end, is plainly seen. 

 The hammerhead shark (Sphyrna zygaena) is a voracious species, 

 yet when swimming after a ship it has all the graceful, undulating 

 movement of the family. 



