ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 
143 
with bristles do no harm but merely dwell in the 
deserted excavations. But there is a little crus¬ 
tacean which does make burrows and does a 
lot of damage. It is called limnoria. It is 
only an eighth of an inch in length and seldom 
burrows more than a quarter of an inch into 
the wood. They work in such tremendous num¬ 
bers and so close to each other that the pile 
chips off and may soon be eaten into an hour¬ 
glass shape at the mud line. These minute 
isopods work, however, clear up to the high 
water level and decrease the diameter of the 
pile under-water very effectively. Limnoria is 
especially abundant in Sheepshead Bay, Bay 
Ridge, Sandy Hook, Atlantic Highlands, Staten 
Island and Long Island Sound. 
At present many engineers, chemists, and 
biologists are striving to attain methods of pro¬ 
tection against borers. Improvements in 
methods of creosoting, impregnation of -wood 
with metallic salts, and various types of con¬ 
crete protection are being investigated and re¬ 
ported upon. By concerted action one can feel 
certain that some advances will be made to make 
the works of man more permanent even in 
teredo infested waters. 
THE BARRACUDA (Sphyraena barracuda) 
From a specimen about five feet long. 
THE BARRACUDA 
By L. L. Mowbray 
T HE barracudas form a single genus, Sphy¬ 
raena, of eighteen or twenty species. All 
are marine, although some enter rivers as 
far as the extent of brackish water. They are 
found in all tropical and subtropical seas. 
Occasionally a straggler wanders north as far 
as the coast of Massachusetts, but this is beyond 
its natural habitat. Its form closely resembles 
that of the pikes, and in size it exceeds the 
muscallunge. Examples of eight feet have been 
recorded, and the writer has seen a specimen 
taken over seven feet long. The fish is sluggish 
in its habits, swimming slowly or moving with 
the current, at times lying in the shade of a 
pinnacle of a coral reef, under some overhang¬ 
ing Gorgonia or under a floating log, or buoy. 
In southern Florida and the Bahamas they are 
abundant at the entrance of small creeks, taking 
advantage of the shade of the mangrove trees. 
Sometimes they are met far out at sea. In the 
Bahamas and Florida straits the largest are 
taken between the edge of the Gulf Stream 
and the coral reefs. Barracuda taken in deep 
waters are known to the fishermen as bluebacks. 
Those from shallow water among the Keys are 
light in color and are at times found in less than 
twelve inches of water. The barracuda is with¬ 
out question the most aggressive and voracious 
of marine fishes. 
Carnivorous in its habits, it lies in wait for its 
prey, at which it strikes at sight. One can hardly 
grasp the situation when the barracuda strikes. 
One sees a lazy fish hardly moving, vanish 
with such rapidity that the eye can only discern 
a streak of blue passing through the water. It 
is in this way that the barracuda has received 
its bad name. While it is extremely voracious, 
it is at the same time most wary, and the object 
at which it strikes lias to be moving. 
Many times I have had the barracuda ap¬ 
proach within eight to twenty feet of the boat, 
and sometimes to within one or two feet of the 
sculling oar. Throw a dead fish to the bar¬ 
racuda, even with no line attached, and he will 
never take it; but throw a live fish within twenty 
or thirty feet of a barracuda, and you get re¬ 
sults. A flash and the fish is swallowed. 
I once had a barracuda strike at the oar that 
I was sculling with, with such force that the 
blade of the oar was broken in two. It is in 
this way that it attacks human beings. It is 
not that it desires human flesh, but it strikes 
at the nearest moving object, an arm or leg, 
hand or foot, inflicting a terrible wound. If 
the barracuda has made a mistake in the strike, 
the attack is not repeated. In all of the many 
records of the attack of the barracuda on human 
beings, there is no record of the rush being re¬ 
peated. A young woman recently attacked by 
a barracuda in Florida waters, bled to death. 
The case attracted widespread attention. The 
attack was made as the young swimmer ap¬ 
proached a buoy, in the shadow of which 
a barracuda was lurking and which may long 
have been its hunting ground. From such places 
