126 
Wild Life in Southern Seas. 
of them exceed 3ft. in length, they are of a 
tremendous girth. Leather jackets of every 
imaginable hue, shape, and size rush the hook, 
and actually come to the surface and knock 
against the canoe. Some of these, with light 
blue skins and red eyes, grow to a great size— 
iolb. to 2olb.—and carry a serrated spike on 
their backs a foot in length, and as thick as a 
man’s finger at the base. Grotesquely ugly as 
is their shape, they are, however, of a very 
delicate flavour, and the natives are very fond 
of this particular species of the isumu moana 
(sea rat) as they very appropriately term leather 
jackets generally. Darting to and fro in every 
direction upon the surface of the water, great 
garfish, of the kind known in Australia as 
“long toms,” will try to seize the hook 
before it can descend to the coral bottom. 
Curiously enough these fish, while of a very 
delicate flavour, are not at all relished by the 
natives, who call them “ foul-feeders ”— i.e., 
feeders upon dead bodies. Upon the top of 
the reef vast swarms of a fish called tafau uri 
(a species of trevally) almost hide the gorgeous 
beauties of the coralline growths below, and 
mingling with them appear an extraordinary 
