104 Big Game Fishes 
boats off Redondo and San Pedro, and it will 
be often two weeks after this that it appears at 
Santa Catalina and other islands, where it is taken 
with more or less regularity up to August and 
sometimes later; in September it disappears. 
The barracuda spawns in San Diego Bay and 
at San Pedro, and I have seen young barracudas 
about two inches in length in Avalon Bay and 
hence assume that this harbor is also a spawn- 
ing ground. The young were in the kelp in 
schools of perhaps two or three hundred, and 
were remarkable for their shyness, it being almost 
impossible to catch them, and for the rapidity 
with which they moved. The entire school, as 
though prompted by a single thought, would 
dash away several feet and take up a position, 
all headed in one direction; and when alarmed, 
make a second move, always preserving a certain 
continuity, most interesting to the observer, peer- 
ing down through the olive-green fronds of the 
kelp. I have never observed at any of the 
islands a barracuda between the very small 
specimens and the adult, but intelligent fisher- 
men have informed me that barracudas of all 
sizes are found in the fine bay of San Diego. 
