1*0 DEVIL FISHIKG. 



as large as could be compassed by liis outspread 

 jaws. 



Wliat I might have done, in the case just related, 

 had the harpoon been ready for the attempt, has 

 actually been done by Mr. Ed. B. Means, already 

 mentioned in the earlier pages of this book. He 

 was cruising in his sailboat, along the Hilton-Head 

 shore, while it was yet flood tide, and seeing a 

 fish (though they do not usually show themselves 

 until ebb tide), succeeded in striking it. The 

 fish ran with the tide, which soon brought him 

 up with the north point of Pinckney Island. 

 He had plunged his spear into the fish so as 

 to cause him to bleed freely, when he was 

 attacked by a large shovel-nosed or hammer- 

 headed shark. 



In his effort to escape from this new enemy, the 

 devil-fish made a rapid turn, which passed the har- 

 pooner's rope round the neck of the shark, making 

 n very effective noose, from which, by reason of his 

 hammer-head, he could not escape the greater the 

 fright of the devil-fish the faster he fled the harder 

 he drew the noose around the neck of his assailant, 

 so that Mr. Means had time to fling a new harpoon 

 into the intrusive shark, and enjoyed the singular 

 satisfaction of landing a devil-fish and a shark by 

 the same line! This landing was effected on a 



