BARRACUDA AND SHARKS 



passes through their bodies. In Florida, I was told that a young girl who 

 was bathing dived from a bridge across an inlet. Presently, the water 

 began to be tinged with blood. She did not rise to the surface, and her 

 bones were finally dredged from the bottom. She had been attacked by 

 a school of hungry Barracuda, which had consumed her. Such stories are 

 evidently founded on imagination. 



If humankind were attractive morsels of shark-food, how could the 

 sharks resist the splendid banquets that are spread before them from New 

 England to Florida every day of the summer? On the East Coast of 

 Florida, the bathers during the winter season disport themselves about 

 as freely as those who crowd our Northern beaches in the summer. 

 Strong swimmers venture far from the shore into deep water where 

 both Barracuda and sharks are known to be in search of food, and foolish 

 yachtsmen jump overboard in the Gulf Stream, yet very seldom has 

 anyone been killed or injured by either kind of fish. The Florida Keys 

 are infested by Barracuda. Often when trolling, a hooked fish is torn to 

 bits by them before he can be brought in. Nevertheless a sunken treasure 

 search is being conducted at one of the Keys and the divers are using 

 helmets only— not the professional diver's outfits— staying down for hours, 

 and no attacks from shark or Barracuda have been suffered. 



Such facts have made me feel little fear of these terrifying denizens of 

 the deep, at least in the localities where I have conducted my operations. 

 In the Bahamas, we confined our diving to areas where sea gardens were 

 found. Sharks probably do not go to these places because the many 

 varieties of fish are too small to be tempting and more especially because 

 the coral and sponge formations make convenient places of refuge for 

 them. I have never seen a shark in the sea gardens, although we have 

 caught a few small dog-fish from our anchorage nearby, in twenty feet 

 or so of water. 



I asked Dr. William Beebe about the danger to a helmet diver of at- 



