The Bass and their Relatives 



335 



banded, spotted, or streaked. In deeper water bright-red spe- 

 cies are found. One of these, Lutianus aya, the red snapper or 

 pargo guachinango of the Gulf of Mexico, is, economically 

 speaking, the most important of all these fishes in the United 

 States. It is a large, rather coarse fish, bright red in color, 

 and it is taken on long lines on rocky reefs chiefly about Pen- 

 sacola and Tampa in Florida, although similar fisheries exist 

 on the shores of Yucatan and Brazil. 



A related species is the Lutianus analis, the mutton snapper 

 or pargo criollo of the West Indies. This is one of the staple 



FIG. 270. Lutianus apodus (Walbaum), Schoolmaster or Caji. Family Lutianidce. 



fishes of the Havana market, always in demand for banquets 

 and festivals, because its flesh is never unwholesome. The 

 mangrove snapper, or gray-snapper, Lutianus griseus, called 

 in Cuba, Caballerote, is the commonest species on our coasts. 

 The common name arises from the fact that the young hide 

 in the mangrove bushes of Florida and Cuba, whence they sally 

 out in pursuit of sardines and other small fishes. It is a very 

 wary fish, to be sought with care, hence the name "lawyer," 

 sometimes heard in Florida. The cubero (Lutianus cyanop- 

 terus) is a very large snapper, often rejected as unwholesome, 

 being said to cause the disease known as ciguatera. Certain 

 snappers in Polynesia have a similar reputation. The large red 

 mumea, Lutianus bohar, is regarded as always poisonous in 

 Samoa the most dangerous fish of the islands. L. leioglossus is 



