THE SALT-WATEE JACKS 



Swift where the ripples boil with finny hosts. 



Bright guttering they glance ; 

 And when the angler's spoon is over them cast, 



How fierce, how vigorous the fight for Ufe ! 

 Now in the deeps they plunge, now leap in air. 



Till ends the unequal strife.' 



Their fierce nature was weU illustrated by these rushes on 

 certain keys of the Florida reef, where I have often joined in 

 the mfil^e. The jacks, in spring and summer particularly, 

 run in shoals of many thousands, and when seized with a blood 

 or hunger lust, go mad, lose all timidity, and like an army of 

 some oceanic Mahdi, rush on the shoals of sardines and drive 

 them on to the beaches, presenting a scene of havoc and slaughter 

 difficult to believe if one has not been in it. 



At a certain key we always attended these ' beats ' to 

 watch the struggle and to aid the fishermen catch jacks. The 

 warning was a deep but loud roar, and a crashing of fishes on 

 the water — a sound that had a definite meaning to all who 

 heard it, and which could be distinguished a mile or more on a 

 hot stiU day. These were summer seas when the Gulf was a 

 disk of steel, its normal condition, and while hot, there was a 

 charm difficult to describe, as here were the gardens of the sea — ^the 



' Gulfs enchanted where the siren slugs and coral reefs lie bare.' 



The reef was the top of a coral mountain, and vast legions 

 of fishes climbed its heights from the abysmal regions where 

 there was little or no Ufe, like birds, to live and feed on the 

 literal gardens along its slopes. 



Following up one of the ' beats ' one day, we presently saw 

 it — a mass of foam on the clear surface, as though a volcano 

 had suddenly burst forth, and the sea was seething and boiling. 

 When we reached the spot the jacks had driven a large shoal 

 (or ' school ' as they call it in Florida) of sardines on to the 

 beach of Long Key (Tortugas), where they formed a windrow 

 of fishes several feet in width, a solid animated mass, with 



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