Further west in the Indian Ocean the barracuda abounds in the waters around the island of Mauritius, where it bears the local name tazarre. Nicholas Pike, while United States consul at Port Louis nearly 50 years ago, made many valuable natural history observations. From his delightful book "Sub-tropical rambles" (1873) we learn that, whenever he went collecting in the tide-pools and over the shallow reefs, he always carried a fish spear to protect himself against attacks from barracudas and eels. He tells us that once he was attacked by a tazarre of considerable size, which "came right at me like a bulldog." He harpooned it in the side, but it got away and then came at him the second time. This time he struck it in the head, but held it off with difficulty, though he was a large powerful man.
Habitat.
The barracudas comprise the sole genus of the family Sphyrzenicke. There are some 20 species of these carnivorous salt-water "pikes" found in the warm seas (tropical and sub-tropical) all over the world. Jordan and Evermann (1896) list 7 species from North American waters: 2 from the Pacific Coast; 4 from the Atlantic; and 1, a Euro pean form, from the Bermudas only (on the authority of Dr. Goode).
Of the Atlantic forms 3 seem to be wholly tropical, ranging from Pen sacola and Charleston to Bahia; 2 of these are occasionally taken as far north as Wood's Hole, probably as stragglers in the Gulf Stream ; the other (the northern barracuda), seems to range from Cape Cod south to about Cape Fear. The young are not infrequently taken in Beaufort Harbor, though the adult is unknown there. So far as its habitat is concerned, the northern barracuda seems to be a decidedly aberrant foam.
Equally aberrant is the form found on the west coast of Africa. Reeve reports (1912) that it goes up the Gambia River, 160 miles, to McCarthy Island, where the water is perfectly fresh. He notes that such specimens are very thin, and conjectures that they find it difficult to get sufficient food. Whether this barracuda is the Sphyrcena jell° reported by Btittikofer for the Liberian coast, as elsewhere noted, can not be said.