Giant Fish of Florida 
5. By breaking of the snell. 
6. By breaking of the rod, generally in the tip, but 
sometimes in the butt. 
7. By carelessness of boatman in gaffing. 
8. By attack of a shark. 
It remains to put before the intending visitor to Florida 
some of the commoner but yet interesting sea-fish, less game 
than the tarpon, less immense than the jewfish, that will under 
a variety of conditions, and on days when the tarpon itself is 
out of reach, afford excellent sport. These notes are not, of 
course, addressed to the expert naturalist ; indeed, they are for 
the most part very brief, and serve chiefly to introduce my 
photographs, which may, perhaps, claim to be the most 
characteristic series of the kind yet published. 
THE CoMMON CaTFISH (Galeichthys felis) 
As the turkey buzzards on land, so the catfish in the sea 
act as scavengers that we could ill dispense with. The sharks, 
on the other hand, with their fiercer and more predatory 
instincts, may rather be compared with the eagles among birds. 
These catfish are, as may be seen from the photograph, not 
beautiful to the eye. Neither, for the matter of that, is the 
condor, yet it is, perhaps, of more use to South America than 
the humming bird. 
We here see a trio of catfish busy on the carcase of a 
monster grouper that floats dead on the surface; and what 
129 
Bid 
