THE RED DRUM. 105 



bottom, although it connot l)e so nmcli of a grubber as many other mem- 

 bers of the same family, better provided for this kind of foraging by the 

 tactile organs under the chin, and a set of grinding teeth with which to 

 liberate the shells of muscles and barnacles. An accurate observer de- 

 scribes them as swimming along close to the bottom, with head down and 

 body obliquely upward, wriggling through the water, rooting up the weeds 

 and grass, among which are found (juantities of shrimps and crabs. One 

 observer found ten or twelve eels of a foot in length in the stomach of a 

 Redfish. Their enemies are sharks, porpoises and saw-fish. 



The Redfish attains a weight of forty pounds, and a length of four or 

 five feet. In the markets of New York and Washington small ones are 

 often seen. The average size of those exposed for sale is perhaps ten 

 pounds. 



The chief demand in the South is for local consumption, though a few 

 thousand pounds are sent every year to New York and other cities of the 

 North. 



S. C. Clarke, in his " Game Fishes of Florida," expresses this opinion : 

 '■• Take it all in all, it is the favorite game-fish of the South — a hard, 

 honest fighter, which makes long runs in open water, seldom skulking or 

 hiding in holes, and never giving up the battle until fairly beaten." 



In discussing this species as a game-fish, I cannot do better than refer 

 to the experiences of H. S. Williams in the Indian River region : 



"I have seen them," writes Mr Williams, "swimming in shallow water 

 by the hundreds, sometimes ten and twenty, moving with almost the 

 regularity of solid columns of infantry ; all apparently of the same size. 

 The Red Fish are in season at all times, but best from the ist of April 

 until January i. In size they run up to forty, and even fifty, pounds. 

 They readily take mullet bait, and when securely hooked furnish fine sport, 

 for the Red Fish is emphatically a game fish. I shall ne\er forget my 

 first experience in this line, a day or two before the full of the moon in 

 November. I concluded to try a new hook just sent me by a distant 

 friend. Just at dusk I went down to the river, and baiting my hook with 

 a half mullet, I walked out on a shelving coquina rock, and swinging the 

 hook around my head a few times sent it out into the river to the full 

 length of the line ; then filling and lighting my i)ipe I took a seat and 

 quietly awaited results. The moon, nearly full, was half an hour or more 

 high, not a cloud obscuring its brightness, and it made a highway of silver 

 across the broad river, now calm and smooth as glass. Scarcely a breath 

 of air stirred the leaves of the huge live-oaks above my head, and every- 

 thing was so still that I cotild distinctly hear the fish in shallow water a 



