BARRACUDA, a predatory, pike-shaped fish of the family Sphyraenidae. It has long, pointed jaws filled with teeth of razor like sharpness and ranges in length from 3ft. to 8 feet. Of about 20 species inhabiting the warmer seas, the giant Australian mullet and the great picuda or becuna are thought to represent the largest and most vicious types, while the smaller, slender barracuda off the coast of southern California has the highest food value. The barracuda has been compared to the shark in its general mode of life. Many swimming tragedies attributed in the past to sharks are now credited to the barracuda. The creature also attacks netted herrings, gorging itself by cutting through the entangling net, thereby causing serious loss to the fisherman. It also disrupts whole schools of mullet and similar fish for the sheer joy of While it is only recently that the barracuda has come to be of commercial value, the inhabitants of the Shetland and Orkney islands have dried and salted this fish for years. Barracuda skins. too, were largely used before the World War for polishing and finishing wood of various kinds. In 1925 it was estimated tha= barracuda caught, off the Pacific coast of the United States num bered 8,005,6or, and had a total value of $340•341. Because it is not easily exhausted and springs about in the most reckless fashion—having been known to leap 1 of t. into the air to catch a flying fish—the barracuda makes an excellent big-game fish. The very trait that makes it dangerous to bathers—that of pursuing any moving object—renders it easy to hook.