98 Big Game Fishes 
West India Islands and at our province of Porto 
Rico the barracuda attains, according to common 
report, a very large size, eight feet being men- 
tioned as its maximum growth by the United 
States Fish Commission. 
Of the habits of the great barracuda in its 
solitudes, little is known. The fish so interested 
me by its singular personality that I watched it 
whenever opportunity offered, and it was always 
the uncompromising foe to small fry, lurking 
near schools of sardines or mullets, creeping upon 
them with the slightest display of motion on the 
part of its fins, conveying the impression of a 
Machiavellian cunning, of ferocity coupled with 
“ways that are dark,” its entire make-up being 
suggestive of the tiger which creeps upon its 
victim and delights in playing with it. 
