go Big Game Fishes 
appears to be from Brazil to North Carolina, but 
the outer Florida reef and the warm waters of 
the West Indies are its favorite haunts, where the 
large individuals enter the deep-blue channels of 
reefs and the smaller fishes frequent the shallow 
lagoons. The color of the barracuda is influ- 
enced more or less by its environment. I have 
seen them on the gray or nearly white coral 
sandy bottom of a lagoon when their simula- 
tion of the tone was almost perfect. The large 
specimens are frequently dark green above, or 
gray; the sides in the young splashed with black, 
occasionally having a decided black stripe; the 
sides and under portion of adults silver; some of 
the fins dark. 
About the keys of the Tortugas group the fish 
is found in great numbers. The spawning occurs 
in early spring. Very young fishes are rarely 
seen; others from eight inches to two feet being 
common in the shallows. Certain barracudas 
school, this being particularly true of the Cali- 
fornian species, to be referred to; but the great 
Florida barracuda is a “solitary,” an ugly, fierce, 
and threatening fish, and I can conceive of no 
“countenance” more savage and vindictive among 
fishes than this, coming, as I have seen it, out of 
