THE FOOD AND GAME FISHES OF NEW YORK. 



377 



of Fire Island Beach September 16. The young are summer and fall visitors in 

 Gravesend Bay. Twenty-two individuals were placed in a tank in August, 1897, and 

 grew rapidly till the temperature of the water fell below 60 F. in November. Dur- 

 ing this month all of them died. 



The species reaches the length of 20 inches. It is one of the finest of our food 

 fishes. 



93. Bluefish ; Snap Mackerel ; Snapper (Pomatomus saltatrix Linnaeus). 



Scomber plumbeiis MITCHILL, Trans. Lit. & Phil. Soc. N. Y., I, 424, pi. IV, fig. i, 1815. 

 Temnodon saltator DEK.AY, N. Y. Fauna, Fishes, 130, pi. 26, fig. 81, 1842. 

 Pomatomus saltatrix JORDAN & GILBERT, Bull. 16, U. S. Nat. Mus., 914, 1883. 

 Pomatomus saltatrix BEAN, Bull. U. S. F. C., VII, 1888 ; i 9 th Kept. N. Y. Comm. Fish., 



269, pi. XX, fig. 24, 1890 ; Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., IX, 363, 1897 ; 52d Ann. Kept. 



N. Y. State Mus., 104, 1900. 



BLUEFISH. 



Bluish or greenish, silvery below, a black blotch at the base of the pectoral. 



Some of the many names applied to this widely distributed fish are the follow- 

 ing: Mackerel (New Jersey), Horse Mackerel (New York and Rhode Island), Snap- 

 ping Mackerel (New England and New Jersey), Skip Mackerel (New York), Snapper 

 and Blue Snapper (New England), Green Fish (Maryland, Virginia and North Caro- 

 lina), Salt-water Jack (Southern States), Tailor (Chesapeake Bay), Whitefish (Hud- 

 son River). Bluefish is the name most extensively used on the coast and in the 

 Gulf of Mexico. 



The Bluefish ranges on our coast from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico, and is 

 believed to frequent warm seas of both continents. It ranged farther to the north- 

 ward in 1887 than for many years before. We heard of its capture in the vicinity 

 of Mount Desert, Me. On our coast and elsewhere its movements are erratic, and 

 its abundance fluctuates greatly within certain periods; it disappears sometimes 

 altogether for a term of years. The young, under about I inch in length, seem to 

 be unknown. The spawning habits and localities have not been recorded. The 



