x^\ 







THE BLUEFISH. 



And, as he darts, the waters bhie 



Are streaked with gleams of many a hue 



Green, orange, purple and gold. Matthew G. Lewis. 



Call them Sir, by whatever name we please ; whether blue-fish, of Massachusetts Bay ; snapper, of New 

 Bedford; horse-mackerel, on the shores of Rhode Island; or tailor, in Delaware Bay, they are the same 

 Tcmnodoti saltator still, and deal out destruction and death to other species in all the localities they visit. 



Speech of Hon. N. E. Atwood, of the Cape District, 1870. 



'T^HIS fish, which on the coast of New England and the IVIiddle States 

 is called the Bluefish, is also known in Rhode Island as the " Horse 

 Mackerel "; south of Cape Hatteras as the '' Skipjack ;" in North Carolina, 

 Virginia, and Maryland it is sometimes known as the ' ' Green-fish. ' ' Young 

 Bluefish are in some parts of New England called " Snapping Mackerel " 

 or "Snappers;" about New Bedford "Blue Snappers;" to distinguish 

 them from the Sea Bass they are sometimes spoken of as the " Bluefish." 

 About New York they are c:.iled '^Skip Mackerel," and higher up the 

 Hudson River " White-fish." In the Gulf of Mexico the name "Blue- 

 fish " is in general use. 



Pomatomus saltatrix is widely distributed — in the Malay Archipelago, 

 Australia, at the Cape of Good Hope, at Natal and about Madagascar ; 

 in the ISIediterranean, where it is a well-known and highly-prized food- 

 fish in the markets of Algiers, though rare on the Italian side. It 

 has been seen at Malta, at Alexandria, along the coast of Syria, and about 

 the Canaries. It has never been seen on the Atlantic coast of Europe, 

 and, strangely enough, never in the waters of the Bermudas or any of the 

 AVestern Islands. On our coast it ranges from Central Brazil and the 



