May, 1921 
FOREST AND STREAM 
201 
DR. 
HENSHALL ON THE GULF COAST 
RELATING SOME ADVENTURES WHILE CRUISING AMONG THE FLORIDA KEYS 
ON THE SCHOONER GRAMPUS, COLLECTING FISH FOR SCIENTIFIC PURPOSES 
TWENTY-FIFTH PAPER 
S OON after my return from abroad 
I was secretary of the Cincinnati 
Society of Natural History for 
several years, and co-editor of its 
monthly journal, to which I contrib- 
uted many articles pertaining to fishes 
and kindred subjects. I made a com- 
plete collection of the fishes of Ohio 
waters for its fine museum. I also be- 
came secretary-treasurer of the Cuvier 
Club, of that city, a flourishing organ- 
ization of enthusiastic sportsmen who 
did good work in the protection and 
propagation of fish and game. Its mu- 
seum possessed a valuable collection of 
preserved specimens of game mam- 
mals, birds and fishes, to 
which I added some rare 
accessions. 
Early in 1888 I pub- 
lished “Camping and 
Cruising in Florida”, and 
during the following year 
I published a supplement 
to the “Book of the Black 
Bass”, entitled “More 
About Black Bass”; the 
plates of these two vol- 
umes were destroyed by 
fire. From February to 
May, 1889, I had charge 
of a scientific expedition 
to the Gulf Coast of Flor- 
i ida, with the schooner 
Grampus, of the United 
States Fish Commission. 
While the schooner was 
engaged in dredging and 
! sounding operations on the 
“Snapper Banks”, twenty 
to fifty miles off shore, I 
did the shore work of col- 
lecting fishes and fish food 
from Biscayne Bay, on the southeast 
coast, and around Cape Sable to Tam- 
pa Bay on the west coast. For the 
prosecution of this work the Grampus 
had carried on deck a seine-boat used 
in sea-fishing for mackerel. 
This staunch little vessel was an 
open boat, thirty-five feet in length, of 
good depth, with keel, and rigged with 
two masts for foresail and mainsail. 
At night the trim little ship was 
housed in with the awning from the 
schooner, which was thrown over a 
sprit, extending between the masts, 
for a ridge pole. The sides of the 
awning were belayed to the gunwales, 
forming a roomy, comfortable and 
water-tight tent-like cabin. 
W/E parted company with the 
yy Grampus at Biscayne Bay, and 
passing through Angel - fish 
creek we entered Barnes Sound, back 
of Key Largo. Beside myself the crew 
consisted of Berry, a Swede sailor, 
Dave, the cabin boy of the Grampus, 
and Captain Bill Pent, of Key West, 
as pilot, to whom the many shoals and 
mud flats of Barnes and Cards Sounds 
were an open book. He was also an 
expert harpooner with the “grains”, a 
two-pronged spear, and to his prowess 
I was indebted for many tarpon, jew- 
fish, barracuda, sailfish and swordfish, 
to say nothing of sharks, sawfish, devil- 
fish and other large skates and rays, 
whose stomachs it was desirable to ex- 
amine to determine their food habits. 
We encountered several manatees, or 
sea-cows, in Barnes Sound, feeding on 
eel-grass, one of which Pent harpooned, 
but the huge mammal succeeded in 
breaking away, for which I was not 
sorry, inasmuch as it was a strict vege- 
tarian, and they had become quite rare. 
One day we surprised a porpoise in 
shallow water suckling her two babies. 
When she became aware of our unwel- 
come presence she gathered the twins, 
one under each flipper, and started for 
deeper water and a safe harbor. She 
stood not on the order of going but 
went in a hurry, making the water boil 
with the churning of her powerful fluke 
propeller. 
We ran aground, one day, on a shoal 
near Man-o’-War Key and waited 
twenty-four hours for high tide, which 
never came, owing to a strong north 
wind blowing the water out of the 
sound. We had a ton of pig iron under 
the floor for ballast, and transferred 
most of it to the dory, when we were 
able to float the vessel into deeper 
water. After seining the shallows 
about the keys and mainland along the 
sounds we rounded Cape Sable just as 
the “norther” backed into the south- 
west, blowing great guns. We were 
obliged to enter Cape Sable Creek to 
escape its fury, and as Dave said we 
“blew-in”, under double-reefed foresail 
and were glad to escape from the angry 
elements outside. 
T HE inlet was not more than a hun- 
dred feet wide, but soon expanded 
into a little bay about a hundred 
yards in extent, which was entirely 
shut in by mangroves and bushes, and 
being so well protected from the wind 
there was scarcely a ripple on its quiet 
surface. There we were stormbound 
for two days, as the gale blew directly 
into the inlet. If Dave lives to be a 
“centurion”, as he expressed it, he will 
never forget the mosquitos of Cape 
Sable Creek. They swarmed in myriads 
in the sheltered bight. They attacked 
us by day and by night, through the 
dense smoke of a dozen smudges. Dave 
and Berry were almost 
frantic from their suffer- 
ings, but, logically, I could 
not complain. I wore 
gloves, but between the 
gloves and my cuffs I 
counted a hundred bites on 
either wrist and let it go 
at that. Pent was im- 
mune, having a pachyder- 
matous skin. I tried to 
comfort and solace Dave, 
who was a cod fisherman 
at home, by reminding him 
that while enjoying sum- 
mer weather in March in 
Florida, he might be 
knocking the ice from his 
lines on the fishing banks. 
“Oh,” he wailed, “that 
would be Heaven!” 
At last in sheer des- 
peration Dave climbed over 
the arched roots of the 
mangroves to the seashore, 
a hundred yards away, 
where it was not possible 
for a mosquito to withstand the fierce 
gale. He had not been gone long when 
he came rushing back, stumbling over 
the twisted roots of the mangroves, 
slipping into the water and scratching 
his legs on the coon oysters growing on 
the submerged roots of the mangroves 
and tearing his clothes in his mad 
haste, and with his eyes staring wildly, 
and his face pale under its thick coat 
of tan. 
“What’s the matter, Dave,” I asked, 
somewhat alarmed, “what’s after you? 
Have you seen a ghost?” 
“Worse than ghosts,” he replied, 
breathlessly, “Rattlesnakes!” 
I saw that he was almost beside him- 
self with terror, for he had a present- 
iment and a constant foreboding that 
he would be bitten by a rattlesnake, 
which he had almost daily expressed to 
the others, and was afraid to remain on 
shore long at a time, and never vent- 
ured into the scrub alone. At length 
he managed to tell me, in broken sent- 
ences, that while sitting on a log on 
the beach, enjoying the gale and the 
absence of mosquitos, he heard a sus- 
picious noise, and on looking under the 
Fishing on the reef 
