Giant Fish of Florida 
seemed to think it was a tarpon, manoeuvred in the 
orthodox way, and presently a pound-grouper flew into the 
boat ! 
There have now been some seven strikes, with only 
two tarpon landed, and sport is somewhat slack. A fair angler 
carelessly trailing her bait over the side is suddenly 
startled by the magnificent leap of a thirty-pound kingfish, 
a mighty mackerel, which all but wrenches the rod from 
her hands. Away it dashes, taking out line at an appalling 
pace, foul-hooked in the eye, but unable to free itself, and 
at last duly brought to gaff. What a handsome fish! 
Particularly noticeable are the knife-edged, conical teeth, 
that can cut baits just below the hook as with scissors, and 
the small proportion of its fin to its swimming power. 
The kingfish is one of the swiftest swimmers in those 
seas, and the Spaniards recognise this by calling it “ cavalla,” 
or the horse. I have shown two figures of kingfish, the 
one chasing a skipjack, its favourite food, below the 
surface, the other leaping in the air and throwing up a 
newly-hunted skipjack, an almost invariable habit. Indeed, a 
kingfish breaking water always appears to have a skipjack 
in readiness to throw up, and this, its next meal, accompanies 
it for about a third of its flight. Although the skipjack 
appears to be knocked out of the water by the kingfish, 
and sometimes shows bleeding rents in its sides, it may be 
that the leap is a voluntary one to avoid capture, for it is 
Aan 
