58 Tarpon Fishing in Florida. 



snapshot of the last episode in that tarpon's life. (V.) The darkey 

 is just about to catch hold of the piano wire, and haul the fish 

 high and dry on the shore. It is surprising how quickly a tarpon 

 changes his world, as the Japanese would say, when once out of 

 the water. This is perhaps largely due to his tremendous 

 exertions before admitting defeat. 



Besides the scales the spherical lenses of the eye of a tarpon 

 make interesting trophies. They can be easily removed by cutting 

 about half way round the membrane near the outside edge of the 

 eye, and just inside the cartilage which protects the sides, the 

 knife being held perpendicular to the surface of the eye. The cut 

 should be as shallow as possible in order to avoid all chance of 

 damaging the lens, which can then be easily extracted with the 

 finger. Thus the tiresome operation of removing the whole eye is 

 avoided. The lens when it first comes out looks like a flawless 

 crystal sphere, and is about the size of a marble. It should be 

 pinned by its thin black attachment, to some projecting piece 

 of wood, and left to dry in contact with nothing more solid 

 than air. 



Unfortunately, it loses its transparency while drying ; it 

 contracts, and creases appear on its surface ; it remains translucent, 

 and becomes quite hard. The lens then has a sort of spherical 

 cleavage, and broken hollow spheres can be stripped off, but the 

 nucleus is always cracked. 



We are soon back in our places among the processions. 

 Now one or other of the boats has a fish on an average of one 

 every fifteen minutes and my camera is kept busy. (VI, VII.) On 

 one occasion two tarpon are 6 or 8 feet clear of the water, within 



