The big barracuda has the interesting habit of herding its prey either until it has digested its previous meal and again feels hungry or because, being thoroughly savage and bloodthirsty, it enjoys the game. Perhaps both conjectures are correct. A number of instances of this sort have been noted. On June 9, 1912, off the southern coal shed at Fort Jefferson, a 30-inch barracuda was observed to have a small school of gray snappers herded in shallow water. Although I went quite near them, they paid little attention to me but huddled close together and as a flock moved one way or the other as the barra cuda moved. They seemed to be in abject fear of it and made no effort to break away until I scared it off. In the same afternoon a 4-foot barracuda was observed under our eastern dock at Loggerhead herding a big school of fishes comprising some 150 gray snappers 12 to 16 inches long, and numbers of yellowtails, grunts, parrot-fishes, angel-fishes, surgeon-fishes, cock-eye pilots, etc. These hung around the piles and swam among the rocks piled on the foundations of the dock to strengthen it, and not one of them dared make a break for liberty. A trolling spoon was procured and thrown out to the big fish, whereupon he slowly backed off into deeper water, and then the assembly broke up.
One other instance of like kind may be given. During the first two weeks of June 1913, a big barracuda laid off our eastern wharf, herding the gray snappers and making it unsafe to bathe. Almost daily efforts were made to hook him, and a pair of grains was kept on that dock for his special benefit, but he avoided grains and eschewed hooks and herded snappers, until possibly he became careless. At any rate Capt. Wm. Lee Wilson, finding him engrossed with the snappers, broke his back with the grains late one afternoon and brought him in alive and kicking. This fish was a male 4 feet 1 inch long and weighed 21 pounds, the largest specimen but one ever taken by us. It is interest ing to note that a barracuda thus engaged in standing guard over a herd of fish in the manner just described, will nearly always be found to have its broad forked tail slowly waving from side to side, vibrating very like the tail of a cat watching a rat hole. This has also been noticed by Holder (1908).
Of the breeding habits, absolutely nothing is known. Judging from
the habits of the fish it seems probable that the eggs are pelagic. Thompson (1905) says that he took specimens 1.5 inches long inside the little sheltered lagoon of Bush Key. Still earlier, Holder (1903) says that at Tortugas spawning occurs in the spring, but adds that very young fishes are rarely seen, although specimens 8 inches and upwards are not uncommon. At Beaufort, North Carolina, the writer has frequently taken in July the 1.5 to 5-inch young of the northern barracuda (S. borealis).
No young barracudas were caught at Tortugas during the summers spent there by the writer, but 4 little ones were taken in the summer of 1916. Concerning these, Professor Longley (with whom I have had the pleasure of studying the fishes of Tortugas) kindly writes that on July 14 one about an inch long was dipped up somewhere out in the open. This "was marked with a distinct lateral band of brown pig ment running the length of the body through the eye." The three others were taken on the west side of Bush Key; one about an inch long from over grassy bottom, the others 1 to 2 inches long from over sandy bottom. Dr. Longley thinks that all were probably swim ming near the surface. These were unfortunately not preserved, since it was not known then that I was at work on this fish.
As noted previously, four young of the great barracuda were taken at Tortugas during the summer of 1917. They vary from 2.25 to 2.6 inches in length to the base of the caudal. The total length can not be given, since these specimens came to me dried and in handling their brittle caudal fins have lost their points. These are believed to be the smallest specimens ever studied.
Since writing the above, some corroborative data has come to hand and its inclusion here will be of value. Weber in his " Fische der Siboga Expedition " (1913), in commenting on the widespread distribution of the Sphyrienithe, says that this is probably due to the fact that the young stages are pelagic. He adds: "I captured in the sea far distant from the coast, in the surface plankton, a specimen only 13 mm. long of a SphyrEena species, which I have been unable to identify." He then adds that he has also taken four specimens of S. jell") varying from 47 to 55 mm. long.