CHAPTER XXIV 

 THE BARRACUDA 



' One (like a Pirat) onely lives of prizes. 

 That in the Deep he desperately surprises ; 

 Another haunts the shore, to feed on foam. 

 Another round about the Bocks doth roam,' 



De Bartas. 



THE name recalls a radiant picture of dead calm water 

 merging into the horizon, soft winds, glassy seas, coral 

 keys, topped with bay-cedar, with clouds of gulls hanging in the 

 air. I see visions of the brown pelican lumbering along, fol- 

 lowed by the laughing gull which alights on its head and snatches 

 its prey. I see the fierce man-of-war bird, plimging down out 

 of the sky. The dorsal fin of a man-eater cuts the deep blue of 

 the channel ; a big loggerhead thrusts his head up and breaks the 

 perfect glass-like surface, and I hear the distant murmur of the 

 sea where the blue river of the Gulf Stream laves the dead coral 

 rocks of the outer reef. All these, are features of the home of the 

 wolf-lLlLe barracuda, as I once knew it on the extreme outegt" 

 Florida reef. 



There is a great difference in fishes in different places, both in 

 habit and other directions. I have never seen a tuna leap after it 

 was hooked ; but I have seen a kingfish leap with a hook in his jaw, 

 though not often ; which, I fancy, no one else has observed, as it is 

 not the habit of the fish. I once placed myself on record as saying 

 that the brown snapper is the cleverest fish in the sea ; but I 

 have seen a statement that an angler on the coast of Florida took 

 snappers with any bait. AU the barracudas I ever caught, and I 

 have taken many at Tortugas, gave me the impression of great 

 cleverness, as nearly all were taken where I could see them in the 

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