THE BAYS 



where the wind whispers soft and low. I certainly experienced 

 a peculiar shock, but the fish never stopped, I fancy it is still 

 going, I have felt the same something when holding a big jack 

 by the tail in Florida. 



In Florida there are a number of rays that are particularly 

 designed by Kature to worry the angler who hooks them. They 

 are btrd-lLke in the general shape of the long graceful wings or 

 fins, and the pectoral fins are employed very much like the wing 

 of a bird, up and down, embodying the so-called poetry of motion. 

 I recall no more graceful object than the whiparee of the Tortugas 

 reef, coming fljdng along over the pure white sand, so bird-bke, 

 that I always thought of a shadow and intuitively looked up- 

 ward to see what great bird was flying overhead — ^peKcan or 

 man-of-war hawk. 



The typical sting ray or whiparee here was black, about five 

 feet wide,"with long side wing-hke fins, streaming out behind a 

 tail three or four feet in length and about the size of a whip in 

 use and efEect. That the tail was a weapon seemed evident, 

 but I never saw it used. The real weapons of the ray were three 

 long serrated pointed darts or ' stings ' just above the base of the 

 tail, one above the other, the lower being the longest. With these 

 the fish can strike in some way a vicious blow. On one occasion a 

 companion who was sitting in the bow of the boat with legs 

 overboard, was cut in some way directly across the instep, each 

 spine leaving a deep jagged wound cut to the bone. I was poling 

 the dinghy along with a grain or spear pole, graining crayfish, 

 and succeeded in killing the ray and securing its knives as trophies. 

 This fish when speared put up an extraordinary fight, towing 

 us around half an hour. When I brought it up by hauling on 

 the cord we did much dodging to escape the flying tail, not directed 

 at us, but whirled about during the gyrations of the fish. 



On this growing seeming atoll, which was about four by ten 

 miles square and near Long Key, formed by it and Bush Key 

 and a long submerged reef, there was a beautiful lagoon a quarter 

 of a mile wide at the upper end, or less, gradually widening and 



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