166 Big Game Fishes 
exhilarating spectacle. I had reeled in my line, 
but as I lifted it from the water a jack seized 
the bait, and broke it. As the bow of the dinghy 
ran up on to the sandy beach I saw scores of 
fishes, ranging from ten to twenty-five pounds, 
leap from the water out upon the shore. I 
sprang overboard knee-deep into the throng, 
and found that the sardines formed an almost 
solid mass two feet or more wide directly along- 
shore, with stragglers forming a dark streak 
for five feet out. Into this helpless cordon the 
jacks were plunging, maddened with excitement, 
long ago satiated, and now killing in wanton 
sport, for the mere lust of killing, filling the 
water with silvery bodies and their parts until 
a line of blood marked the mélée. 
The jacks paid no attention to us, and my 
Seminole boatman, himself seized with the desire 
to catch the fishes, carried away with the excite- 
ment of the scene, plunged his hands into the 
teeming mass and grasping the jacks by the 
tail tossed them upon the beach, where scores 
were leaping and beating their way down the 
sands into the water again. I was repeatedly 
nearly overthrown by being struck by them, 
and finally made my way to the beach to watch 
