104 Big Game Fishes 



boats off Redondo and San Pedro, and it will 

 be often two weeks after this that it appears at 

 Santa Catalina and other islands, where it is taken 

 with more or less regularity up to August and 

 sometimes later; in September it disappears. 



The barracuda spawns in San Diego Bay and 

 at San Pedro, and I have seen young barracudas 

 about two inches in length in Avalon Bay and 

 hence assume that this harbor is also a spawn- 

 ing ground. The young were in the kelp in 

 schools of perhaps two or three hundred, and 

 were remarkable for their shyness, it being almost 

 impossible to catch them, and for the rapidity 

 with which they moved. The entire school, as 

 though prompted by a single thought, would 

 dash away several feet and take up a position, 

 all headed in one direction; and when alarmed, 

 make a second move, always preserving a certain 

 continuity, most interesting to the observer, peer- 

 ing down through the olive-green fronds of the 

 kelp. I have never observed at any of the 

 islands a barracuda between the very small 1 

 specimens and the adult, but intelligent fisher- 

 men have informed me that barracudas of all 

 sizes are found in the fine bay of San Diego. 



