June, 1921 
FOREST AND STREAM 
257 
Photo by W. B. Nichols. The collecting boat of the Miami Aquarium 
prey out on the bank and devour it — 
and the hook also. The next morning 
we would go out and look for our white 
stick attached to the line, hook, and 
crocodile. When the buoy was found, 
all we would have to do would be to 
haul our victim out of the water, and 
kill it. 
About five o’clock, an hour before 
sunset, we were delighted to see the 
crocodile coming slowly into the mouth 
of the river. Only the dorsal part of 
its head, back and tail could be seen 
above the water. It neared our boat, 
which was made fast to the north bank 
of the river, which was not more than 
fifty yards wide here, and continued on 
up stream. The slow and steady lateral 
undulations of the tail could be seen, 
for its dorsal scutes, like teeth of a 
great saw, protruded above the surface. 
As far as we could judge it paid no at- 
tention to us or to the body of the mon- 
key on the opposite side of the river. 
After going up stream about one hun- 
dred yards it stopped and remained mo- 
tionless. Then, after we had been cas- 
ually watching it for fifteen or twenty 
minutes, we saw it drifting backwards 
down the middle of the stream. It ar- 
rived at a position directly opposite the 
body of the monkey, stopped and, still 
heading up stream, gradually propelled 
itself nearer the bank. 
It stayed for several minutes within 
fifteen feet of the body of the monkey 
and then went closer until the monkey 
was nearly directly overhead, for the 
palms to which the monkey’s body was 
attached overhung fairly deep water. I 
(continued on page 282 ) 
THE NEW AQUARIUM AT MIAMI 
By J. T. Nichols 
T HE city of Miami looks out to the 
eastward on the broad smiling 
waters of Biscayne Bay. Beyond 
the Keys and the sand beach which 
mark the limit of the bay, the shallow 
water, green in the sun, with here and 
there a dark patch of rock below, sim- 
ulating the shadow of a passing cloud, 
stretches but a short distance off shore. 
It gives place toward the horizon to the 
deep blue of the tropical ocean, where 
the Gulf Stream flows in the narrow 
passage between Florida and the Ba- 
hamas, ever bearing its freight of warm 
sea fishes into the north. 
From the beach one could observe the 
little fishing boats bobbing about far 
out to sea, and late in the afternoon 
it was extremely interesting to visit the 
wharf in the center of town where 
sportsmen landed their catch of Gulf 
Stream fishes. These represented some 
diversity of species. There were the 
big slender sail-fish with long spear-like 
snout whose banner-like dorsal fin drops 
into a slot in its back; the giant bar- 
racuda of savage pike-like visage; the 
silver kingfish, a large species allied 
to the Spanish mackerel of epicurean 
fame, and scarcely less excellent for the 
table than that fish, though somewhat 
firmer meated and less rich in flavor. 
Here also (February 8) were speci- 
mens of the false albacore ( Gymnosar - 
da alleterata) and with them a couple 
of true albacore ( Germo alalunga) . A 
very beautiful large species of these 
tuna-like fishes previously unknown to 
science, with slender band-like stream- 
ers from the tips of back and anal fins 
has recently been discovered in the 
neighborhood, and is known as Germo 
(or Thunnus) allisoni in honor of the 
President of the new Miami Aquarium, 
where a mounted specimen (doubtless 
at present writing the only one in the 
world) now hangs. 
T HE sun-burned smiling face of the 
Aquarium’s director, Mr. Louis L. 
Mowbray, was the first thing to 
greet us on the station platform as our 
train rolled in from the north. There 
followed days with him in the collecting 
boat among the channels which thread 
the shallow water to the southward. 
Here he demonstrated his almost uncan- 
ny knowledge of the finny denizens of 
the waters, which were being trapped 
and carried back to Miami in the well, 
to swim at the Aquarium, where hun- 
dreds of interested tourists could admire 
their strangeness or beauty. There 
were long evenings when a wide knowl- 
edge of fish in the water on one hand 
was exchanged for a somewhat greater 
familiarity with technical details 
learned from books on the other. It 
was thus that the writer (among many 
other things) learned that parrot fishes, 
though they seek shelter in any suitable 
crevice about the reef or under loose 
stones, will not enter a hole ; for it is in 
holes that their arch enemy, the big 
reef eel, or moray, lives. A beautiful 
green moray was taken in one of the 
traps which it had probably entered to 
feast on other small fishes inside. 
T HE Miami Aquarium is “Dedicat- 
ed to the scientific collection and 
popular diffusion of knowledge 
relative to the marine life of the warm 
seas.” The warm seas of the world 
form a single system, for, though in re- 
cent geologic time a barrier has been 
raised between Atlantic and Pacific in 
the narrow strip of land connecting 
North and South America, warm cur- 
rents set up in the Indian Ocean by the 
trade winds flow westward, to some ex- 
tent, past the Cape of Good Hope 
against the westerly winds prevailing 
there, and enter the Atlantic. Looking 
out as Miami does on one of the main 
arteries of this system, the Gulf Stream, 
it is an ideal location for an aquarium. 
Photo by W. B. Nichols. 
Fish traps in the tender of the collecting boat 
