THE SEA DRUM. (Young.) 



—1 



"-"•^1-? 



SEA DRUM AND LAKE DRUM. 



His drumming heart cheers up his burning eye. 



Shakespeare, Rape of Lucrece. 



"VTEXT to the sword-fish, tunny, jew-fish, and halibut, the Drum is 

 perhaps the largest of the food-fishes of our coast. It is most abun- 

 dant in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Southern Atlantic States, though 

 nearly every summer a few specimens appear on the south coast of New 

 England. In one or two instances individuals have been observed as far 

 north as Provincetown, Mass. In the Gulf it is common everywhere, 

 even to the southern boundary of Texas ; how much further south it goes 

 there is at present no means of determining. Ichthyologists formerly sup- 

 posed that there were two species, one of which, of small size and con- 

 spicuously banded with brown and white, was called the " Banded Drum," 

 P. fasciatus, or "Little Drum." This is now well-known to be the 

 young of the P. chromis. It seems curious that the changes of color in 

 relation to age, although known to Cuvier forty years ago, should have 

 Deen overlooked by American naturalists, and that the species P. fasciatus 

 should have stood as valid until 1873. 



The name " Drum," as everyone knows, alludes to the loud drumming 



