The High Leapers 



monster weighing hundreds of tons, possibly eighty 

 feet in length, rise slowly and deliberately out of the 

 water until it appeared to be dancing on the surface, 

 almost clear of it, then sink slowly back. Such a 

 leap is on record in the annals of the British navy. 

 A large whale cleared a boat, going completely over 

 it, an estimated leap of twenty feet in air how many 

 in a lateral direction was not known. 



The leaps of fishes are usually of three general 

 classes : they leap in play or sport, to escape from an 

 enemy, and in feeding. In the second class we find 

 most of the great game fishes, as the tarpon, king 

 fish, black bass, shark and others. No better place 

 to observe leaping fishes could be devised than the 

 lagoon of the outer Florida reef, or the inner bays 

 or lagoons that stretch along the low coast of Texas. 

 Here the water is very shallow, ranging from four 

 to fifteen feet often shallower; and when drifting 

 in this enchanted region in search of certain channel 

 bass holes, which my boatman assured me were there, 

 I believe I have seen some very remarkable leaps. I 

 cannot say that I was perfectly cool, in a literal sense, 

 as the mercury was up among the eighties, as it often 

 is along the Texan coast in August, but I was abso- 

 lutely calm as my boatman dropped anchor by a cer- 

 tain hole and I prepared to give battle with the gaff- 

 topsail cat fish, king of all the bait stealers. 



I had barely cast my first shrimp when I saw a fish 

 shoot out of the water at least fifteen feet to wind- 



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