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V 



THE SPOT OR LAFAYETTE. 



SPOTS, CROAKERS AND RONCADORS 



Man's life is warm, glad, sad, 'twixt loves and graves. 

 Boundless in hope, honoured with pangs austere. 

 Heaven gazing ; and his angel wings he craves ; 

 The fish is swift, small-needing, vague yet clear, 

 A cold, sweet, silver life, wrapt in round waves. 

 Quickened with touches of transporting fear. 



Leigh Hunt, The Fisli, The I^hin and the Spirit. 



'TpHE Spot, or Lafayette, Liostotnus xajithwus, is found along our 

 coast from New York to the Gulf of Mexico, and is known in New 

 York and elsewhere as the "Spot," on the coast of New Jersey as the 

 " Goody " and sometimes as the '•' Cape May Goody," in the Chesapeake 

 region also as the " Spot " and the " Roach," at Charleston, S. C, as the 

 "Chub," in the St. John's River, Fla.. as the " Masooka " — this name 

 being probably a corruption of a Portuguese name, "Bezuga" — and at 

 Pensacola as the " Spot " and " Chopa blanca." The name "Lafayette " 

 is used for this fish in New York even to the present day. This name was 

 given it by the New York fishermen in consequence of its reappearance in 

 large numbers in that region having been coincident with the arrival of 

 Lafayette in this country in 1S34. It had been known before that time, 

 but only in scattering numbers. 



Although they sometimes enter the large rivers of the South, such as 



