side it steadily towed the launch inshore, despite our efforts. It was evident there was a doubt as to who was really caught; the boatman seemed to think it was not the moon fish. In fact, the tables were turned, and we could not move the fish an inch in the opposite direction from which it wished to go. Again it fouled the propeller, and writhed and lifted us as we drifted nearer the surf-a bad prospect for the launch. We attempted to haul the big fish around so that it would tow us seaward, but it was of no avail. The next thing was to cast off entirely, let the fish swim out, then take the chance of catching it again in deep water. While we were deliberating a large launch hove in sight, and upon seeing the struggles of the fish and our predicament came to our rescue. We passed them a line, then both launches put on full speed and started. The fish redoubled its efforts to escape, whirling about, striking the launch ponderous blows, and made a desperate attempt to go down. To the excited lookers-on, it seemed as though it would be successful, but after much manoeuvring and excitement the fish was gotten astern, the boats got under way and slowly started. Every few moments it would try to turn and surged violently from side to side, threatening to rake the deck and carry away our smoke-stack. Hence it was necessary for me to hold the hawser and see that it was kept in place, a performance, during a mile or so, which can only be compared to leading a bull by a rope where the bull has a strong aversion to the leader and a strong desire to go in the opposite direction. In an hour, possibly less, the two boats towed the fish to the Tuna Club dock and we made it fast to the float, where several hundred people had an opportunity to see it alive and unhurt, as we were careful not to injure it. Here the fish appeared to accept the inevitable, and I succeeded in accompanying a long-wished-for desideratum, one, in all probability, never enjoyed by any one, an opportunity to see a big moonfish swim, a performance witnessed by a crowd armed with kodaks of all degrees and conditions, and it was photographed in various positions by the wonder-eyed tourists, not one in a hundred of whom doubtless had ever heard of a moonfish. A better name than moonfish would be “headfish," as it is all head, at least to the layman, and might have been conjured up by some weird imagination for a grotesque display of the possibilities; a fish made by the mile and cut off to suit the customer, as it is a great oval, with big staring eyes where they should be; two absurd little fins where fins belong, and where the long graceful tail of other fishes is, literally nothing but a kind of frill, hardly that, and of little use. The dorsal or top fin was represented by a long tooth-shaped fin which extends upward, and on the lower side is another just like it, so if you should stand on your head, or the fish should turn completely over, it would look almost the same, and from what I have seen of the fish I am almost convinced that it has some doubts as to which is the upper side, as it often affects a happy medium and lies on its side floating in the tides of summer. The fishes appear like great faces as they move gracefully about, certainly among the strangest denizens of the sea. They also look like moons or suns, and a common name is sunfish (Mola). One of my boatmen called them moons, and had seen them at night in the shadowy depths, very reflections of the moon, blazing with light, spectral, ghostly. I have had various experiences with these fishes. Upon one occasion I took one with a boat-hook after a struggle off Boon Island, Maine. The fish weighed possibly two hundred pounds. Another I saw run aground, like a ship, on the bar of the St. John's River, Florida. The water was very low and several lumber schooners had been lying up-stream waiting for the conjunction of high tide and down-stream wind. But the big moonfish knew not of tides or winds; drawing eleven or twelve feet of water, as clumsy as a |