The High Leapers 



have seen the fish rise head first, like a tuna, come 

 out and turn gracefully. I have seen them belly up, 

 beating the hot air with tremendous blows; indeed, 

 the experienced tarpon angler has seen the fish in 

 every position, and possibly the jumps observed by 

 Mr. L. G. Murphy were the most spectacular, at 

 least of any which I recall. He stated that he hooked 

 a tarpon at Aransas, a six-foot fish, which made a 

 series of six leaps across the channel, each of which 

 was at least twelve feet in height a magnificent 

 series of aerial performances; and when I say that 

 Mr. Murphy has taken twenty-four tarpon in a single 

 day, and holds the record as well for the largest black 

 sea bass rod catch in the world, four hundred and 

 thirty-four pounds, it can be imagined that he is not 

 an imaginative or excitable person. When fishing in 

 the St. John's River, Florida, for tarpon in 1876, I 

 was told by an officer of the steamer Ella Morse that 

 a tarpon sprang aboard of her and landed in the lap 

 of a man who was sitting on the upper deck in front 

 of the pilot house; and any one who knows the tar- 

 pon, who has been on intimate terms with it, can 

 well believe that none of these incidents suggest the 

 limit of its powers as a high jumper. 



Perhaps the most extraordinary leap of a fish I 

 have witnessed was that of the big ray or manta, 

 which has an enormous square surface, the contact 

 or return being a remarkable spectacle. I believe I 

 have seen a manta fifteen or eighteen feet wide, five 



