THE BONITO. 



BONITOES AND TUNNIES, 



Vext with the puny foe, the Tunnies leap, 

 Flounce on the stream, and toss the mantling deep, 

 Ride o'er the foamy seas, with torture rave, 

 Bound into air, and dash the smoking wave. 



Oppian, Translated by Jones, 



nr^HE Bonito, Sarda niediterranca, is one of those fishes which appea r to 

 live chiefly in the open ocean, wandering hither and thithei in 

 large schools, preying upon other pelagic fishes, and approaching land 

 only when attracted by abundance of acceptable food. Several of the 

 smaller species of the group of Tunnies, to which it belongs, are known 

 to sailors by the same name. The common "Bonito" of England, Orcyuus 

 pelamys, two or three specimens of which have been detected in our waters 

 since 1876, is what is here called the "Striped Bonito," but the fish 

 which most frequently and in greatest numbers approaches our shores is 

 the one which is named at the head of this section. Almost nothing is 

 known of its habits, and it is even impossible to define its geographical 

 range with any degree of certainty, its distribution being very unlike that 

 of any other fish with which we are acquainted. It maybe said, howev*,. 

 that it is found only in the Atlantic basin. On our coast it occurs in 

 summer between Cajie May and Cape Sable, though rarely north of Cape 

 Ann ; occasionally off Cape Hatteras and the mouth of the Chesapeake 

 and in the Gulf of Mexico. Specimens have been taken about the Can- 

 aries and Madeira, at the Cape of Good Hope and in the Mediterranean. 

 It has not been observed on the coast of Europe north of Gibraltar, nor 

 at the Bermudas. 



