- 72 - 
Onoe today I nearly fell over the barracuda that occasionally comes to 
the reef. I was walking over to pick up something or other and watching ^ 
Tom at his Job of taking one of the pens apart. Suddenly I was aware of the 
barracuda almost at my feet, in the act of getting out of my way to keep 
from being stepped on (this one is constantly hanging about a few inches from 
the bottom where he is practically invisible.) Both of his dorsals were 
up and he looked peeved, and snapped his Jaws a couple of times to let me 
know that he wasn^t used to this sort of thing. 
Later on in the afternoon I spotted him again lying alongside a big 
brain coral in the shadow of a gorgonian. The sun was back of a cloud, and 
I signalled Tom to come over and flash him with the still camera — the 
setting was very pretty, and besides the fish had become mottled to blend 
with his surroundings in a manner one sees very rarely. Tom was Just lining 
up on him when our larger grouper decided to get into the act. He rushed in 
and bunped (or bit) the barracuda in the tail* The Nassau is not over 
eighteen inches, against the barracuda four feet. The ’cuda fled like 
a bullet, and then came back to find out what had hit him. He swam up to 
witMn three or four feet of Tom and me and gave us a dirty look, as though 
he blamed us for his troubles, and then turned and slowly swam out of sight, 
probably feeling that this piece of reef has become a heck of a place to 
try to rest in. The grouper, with his dorsal up and his Jaws clamped, 
swam around and around in the piece where the barracuda had been. No doubt 
