8 4 AMERICAN FISHES. 



Sheepshead and the Scuppaug or Porgy. There are several others inhabit- 

 ing our southern coast, of which the Sailor's Choice, Lagodon rhomboides, 

 and the Bream, or Bastard Snapper, Spar us aculeatus, are the best known, 

 but these are of little importance to either fisherman or economist. On 

 the Pacific side are others, which will doubtless be better known in the 

 future than they are at the present time. 



The Sheepshead, ArcJiosargus probatocephalus , is one of the choicest fishes 

 of our waters. It derives its name from the resemblance of its profile and 

 teeth to those of a sheep, and also from its browsing habits. Unlike most 

 of those fishes which are widely distributed along our seaboard, it has only 

 one name, and by this it is known from Cape Cod to the Mexican bor- 

 der. The negroes of the South, however, frequently drop the sibilant 

 sound from the middle of the word and call it " Sheephead." 



Several other species are called by the same name, but there is little 

 danger of confusion except in the case of the so-called "Sheepshead" of 

 the Great Lakes, which is similar to the well-known " Drum ;" this fish is 

 occasionally sold to the unwary on the recommendation of its good name. 



This fish has never been known to pass to the north of the sandy arm of 

 Cape Cod, and its northern range is at present somewhat more limited than 

 it was eighty years ago. In the records of Wareham, Massachusetts, they 

 are mentioned as having been somewhat abundant in 1803, and in Narra- 

 gansett Bay there is a tradition that they began to disappear in 1793, when 

 the Scuppaug commenced to increase in abundance. In 187 1, E. E. Taylor, 

 of Newport, testified before the U. S. Commissioner of Fisheries, that his 

 father caught Sheepshead in abundance forty-five or fifty years previous. 

 In 1870 and 1871 the species was coming into notice in this region, though 

 neither at that time nor since has it become common. On the south 

 shore of Long Island it is quite abundant, and in New York harbor and 

 its various approaches, at times, may be taken in considerable numbers. 

 ( >n the coast of New Jersey it is also abundant, and between Cape May 

 and Montauk Point the spe< ies is said to attain its greatest perfection as a 

 food-fish. Lugger states that it frequents the oyster localities of all parts 

 of Chesapeake Bay, but is now more common among the southeastern 

 counties of Virginia, where it comes in considerable numbers to feed upon 

 the animals which live on the oyster bars. "It is found about wrecks of old 

 vessels, on which barnacles and mollusks live. About Beaufort, N. C, it 

 is also abundant, and also along the entire coast of the South Atlantic and 



