The Barracuda of Florida 89 
the muskallunge would possibly mistake the bar- 
racuda for this gamy fish of the lakes, as it is 
long, slender, and pikelike; a silvery arrow, a 
privateerlike fish, trim, alert, and possessed of re- 
markable cunning. Its head is long and pointed. 
The mouth wide, the lower jaw slightly protrud- 
ing, giving it a bulldog appearance, which in old 
fishes becomes the support or base of a single 
large tooth, a companion to others of large size 
and bladelike shape which make up its armament. 
The first dorsal fin stands up alone like a leg-of- 
mutton sail, boomed out by five spines. The 
second is equally isolated, corresponding to the 
anal. The tail is forked and a powerful organ 
for propulsion, and very expressive in the sense 
of the tail of a cat, vibrating in a singular man- 
ner when the fish is about to pounce upon its 
prey. 
There is a single genus, Spkyrena, and twenty 
species, S. darracuda (Walbaum) of the Gulf of 
Mexico being the subject of this chapter. It 
attains the length of between six and seven feet, 
and the weight of sixty or seventy pounds, this 
being my personal observation; and I have been 
informed by “reef combers” that larger speci- 
mens have been taken. The range of the fish 
