216 THE GULF COAST OF FLORIDA. 



" What," said I, "that little white object? A sheeps- 

 head is dark on his back." 



"Yes, but that's his belly you are looking at. He's lying 

 on his back." 



By this time we were over him. I struck ; and sure 

 enough stuck a prong of the spear into his belly. We killed 

 a large number of them in this way during the evening, and 

 when we had secured as many as we cared for, quit killing 

 them, but occasionally we turned them over gently with the 

 spear, woke them up, saw them rub their eyes with their 

 pectoral fins (metaphorically speaking) until fully awake, 

 when they would 



" Dart away 

 As if to say, 

 You don't catch us napping." 



Other varieties of fish, such as mullet, red-fish, trout, man- 

 grove snapper, and others swim very rapidly when frightened 

 by the light, and in throwing at them one must make a time 

 allowance the same as when shooting birds on the wing. 

 Besides a " depth " allowance must be made. That is, if the 

 fish be some distance away from the boat, and you throw at 

 him at an angle of, say forty-five degrees, you must aim from 

 six to eighteen inches under him, owing to the depth at 

 which he lies below the surface of the water. Taking these 

 facts, together with the motion of the boat, into considera- 

 tion, fire-fishing is no boy's play after all, but a genuine and 

 exciting sport, requiring almost as much practice, skill and 

 judgment to become proficient in it as does shooting on the 

 wing. 



We ran into several schools of mullet and it was amusing 

 to see the rapid speed they made in getting away from the 

 light. Hundreds of needle fish, a beautiful little denizen of 

 the salt water, sported on the surface, followed the light and 



