As the rays and sharks both belong to the order of placoids, it appears that the shark is not particular about preying on his kindred.
"Are sharks plenty here?" I inquired.
"Indeed they are!" said Pecetti: "I wonder we have not had our lines cut by them. I have caught half a dozen in an hour's time right here. I think I can show you one very quick." He went ashore and launched the ray's carcass down the current. It floated slowly away, but had not gone fifty yards when it was seized by a shark, which tugged and tore at it, till directly a second and a third arrived and struggled furiously for it, lashing the water into foam with their tails. Presently more came up, till there were five or six of the monsters all fighting for the prey, which they soon devoured. "There, you see how soon they smelt the blood. What you think of sharks, now?"
"I think," said I, "that this is not exactly the place to bathe in."
The tide being now well on the ebb, the fish stopped biting, perhaps driven away by the sharks, and we sailed down to the inlet, where there is a long sandy beach fringed with mangroves: behind these, low hillocks of sand covered with saw-palmetto extend across to the ocean, perhaps half a mile; and here is an expanse of sandy beach some hundreds of yards in width at low tide, hard and smooth, so that one could drive from St. Augustine to the south end of the peninsula were it not for the creeks and inlets.
On the river-front is a long bed of oysters, growing up to high-water mark, the upper ones poor, called "raccoon oysters" by the natives, but the lower ones, which are mostly covered with water, large, fat and delicious. We gathered about a bushel of these, built a fire of dead mangrove wood, which is the best of fuel, and when we had a good bed of coals threw on the oysters. The heat, at the same time that it roasted them, obliged them to open their valves, so that it was both easy and pleasant to take them on the half shell. Besides these free gifts of Nature, we had with us from the hotel biscuits, cold meat and doughnuts. While we were eating, a handsome sailboat from the hotel came to the beach: it contained a party of ladies and gentlemen who were going for shells, which are numerous on the sea-beach, though not many of the finer sorts are found so far north. After a heavy storm the paper nautilus is sometimes found. Sea-beans of various kinds are numerous, and the search for them, and the polishing of them when found, seem to be the principal occupations of many Florida tourists. Were it not for the sharks, this would be a fine bathing-beach. Whether they are man-eaters or not, may be a question, but we preferred to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt.
On our return to Loud's we found Doctor White very busy skinning his birds.
"What is this, doctor?—a jay? It looks rather different from our blue jay."
"Yes: this is the Florida jay: it has no crest, you perceive. Here is another Southern bird, the fish-crow, smaller than ours, you see. Here I have a white heron and a wood-ibis. These will give me work for to-day."
"What game did you see, doctor?" inquired Captain Herbert.