The infuriated fish tows the boat in all directions. It is too heavy to haul in, and must be got ashore. This is not very difficult, for you let it run free when heading in that direction, and check it when making a move for deeper water. At last it is beached. There is no occasion to cut out the harpoon, for all you need do is to thrust in your finger and press up the barb on either side, and it comes away at once.
As a trophy, the back of this ray, with its black ground and small white rings within larger ones, characteristic of old fish, makes a handsome table cover. The tail is about six feet in length, and less in thickness than a cedar pencil, and at its base are three or four barbed spears. It feeds entirely on crustacea, never taking a fish bait, and is caught only by foul hooking. In the roof of the whip ray’s mouth will be seen a series of processes like corrugated grinding stones, and there is a corresponding series on the lower jaw. It is between these that the shell fish are thoroughly triturated. I have somewhere read that the male rays have sharper teeth and no grinding arrangement, but I am not sufficiently acquainted with the sex distinctions to bear this out.
I remember another exciting adventure, which resulted in the capture of a giant ray, weighing many hundred pounds. The wind had just gone to the south after many days of cold northers, and, whereas it would require several days of such wind to bring the tarpon back to a feeding humour, this first breath from the south was sufficient to stir up a long line of foam and slush that means food to the devil-fish. Twenty feet and upwards across these monsters may measure, and they have been taken weighing over 4,000 lb. In the corners of the mouth, which gapes like a letter-box, are coiled fans that are used in waving the food into the throat. Three of these devil-fish we saw on the day in question, coming along and raising breakers as if they were steam-propelled rafts. With the tips of their great wings occasionally showing, and their huge shining black backs continually appearing above the surface, they looked very terrible.
In full pursuit was the man with the harpoon, who had been waiting such a chance for weeks. And now, as we can plainly see, he is close to this moving line of flesh. Whiz goes the harpoon, hurled by a strong and practised arm; not only the metal head, but also the shaft is deeply buried in that three-feet slab of flesh, and the maddened monster bounds off with lightning speed. The next moment the man changes places with his guide, no easy proceeding in a slender 14ft. craft, but it is necessary that he should do so, for he killed a devil-fish alone not a month since, and the skin has not yet grown again on his raw hands. Ere the boat has got properly under way a loose bight of rope catches the guide round the leg, and flings him into the gunwale; there is plenty of way on now, and a dangerous list into the bargain as the bow dips under water. The man rushes, knife in hand, to his guide’s assistance, but the latter succeeds with great dexterity in freeing himself from the coils, and there is no need to cut loose.