Tarpon, 187 pounds. St. Lucie River, Florida Identifier: sportonlandwater01gris (
find matches)Title:
Sport on land and water : recollections of Frank Gray GriswoldYear:
1913 (
1910s)Authors:
Griswold, F. Gray (Frank Gray), 1854-1937Subjects:
Horses Fox hunting Fishing Horse racingPublisher:
(Norwood, Mass.) : Privately printed (The Plimpton Press)Contributing Library:
Webster Family Library of Veterinary MedicineDigitizing Sponsor:
Tufts UniversityView Book Page:
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view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.Text Appearing Before Image:T ON LAND AND WATER the small fish in the rivers will not increasetheir speed as you pass them by. In therivers, when not in motion, they will lieon the bottom, coming to the surfacefrom time to time for a mouthful of airand then retiring to their resting-place,after which the air-bubbles will rise to thesurface for some time. It is this actionthat makes the natives insist that thesefish have lungs and use them for breathing.Then, again, they will lie on the bottomfor hours, as other fish do, with very littleor no motion of the fins. I once caughta very small baby tarpon in a gill-net,and kept him alive in a tub for hours. Hedid not act as other fish do in like circum-stances, but allowed me to stroke him gentlywithout attempting to move. From timeto time he would rise to the surface, as thelarge fish do in the rivers, then go to thebottom of the tub again, and in a momentthe bubbles would slowly issue from hismouth. He kept this up all day. Tarponfeed on small school-fish and on mul-Text Appearing After Image:TARPON, 187 POUNDSSt. Lucie River, Florida, January 25 SEAFISHING 93 let, yet their long under jaw denotes thatthey are bottom-feeders. They have noteeth, and the hard mouth, with whichthey crush their food before swallowing it,is a further proof that they enjoy a diet ofcrab and the like. According to Hallock, the River CrowIndians have the following legend: Many creations ago, when the salt watercovered the surface of the plains and theRocky Mountain Range formed the shore-line of the primitive continent — long beforeany land animals existed except reptiles —the Great Spirit had constituted the tarpon-fish the great Silver King, and appointedhim to be the guardian of the undiscoveredvast ore-beds of silver which fill the moun-tain crags. He clothed him with silverarmor-plates and made him ruler over allthe anadromous fishes which came up outof the salt-water estuaries into the fresh-water limpid streams to spawn. Oncein every century the Silver King was per-mitted to bathe in anNote About Images Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.