1 66 Big Game Fishes 



exhilarating spectacle. I had reeled in my line, 

 but as I lifted it from the water a jack seized 

 the bait, and broke it. As the bow of the dinghy 

 ran up on to the sandy beach I saw scores of 

 fishes, ranging from ten to twenty-five pounds, 

 leap from the water out upon the shore. I 

 sprang overboard knee-deep into the throng, 

 and found that the sardines formed an almost 

 solid mass two feet or more wide directly along- 

 shore, with stragglers forming a dark streak 

 for five feet out. Into this helpless cordon the 

 jacks were plunging, maddened with excitement, 

 long ago satiated, and now killing in wanton 

 sport, for the mere lust of killing, filling the 

 water with silvery bodies and their parts until 

 a line of blood marked the melee. 



The jacks paid no attention to us, and my 

 Seminole boatman, himself seized with the desire 

 to catch the fishes, carried away with the excite- 

 ment of the scene, plunged his hands into the 

 teeming mass and grasping the jacks by the 

 tail tossed them upon the beach, where scores 

 were leaping and beating their way down the 

 sands into the water again. I was repeatedly 

 nearly overthrown by being struck by them, 

 and finally made my way to the beach to watch 



