POGONIAS CROMIS. 117 



called drumming is produced has not hitherto been satisfactorily explained. Cu- 

 vier observes that it may depend upon the air-bladder, though he says it has no 

 communication with the external atmosphere. DeKay supposes it " to be occa- 

 sioned by the strong compression of the expanded pharyngeal teeth upon each 

 other." 



Frequent examinations of the structure and arrangement of the air-bladder, as 

 well as observations on the living animal just taken from the water, when the 

 sound is at intervals still continued, have satisfied me that it is made in the air- 

 bladder itself; that the vibrations are produced by the air being forced by strong 

 muscular contractions through a narrow opening, from one large cavity, that of 

 the air-bladder, to another, the cavity of the lateral hom ; and if the hands be 

 placed on the sides of the animal, vibrations will be felt in the lateral horn, corre- 

 sponding with each sound. 



Ichthyologists differ also as to the character of the sound ; Schoepff speaks of it 

 as "a hollow, rumbling sound under water"; Dr. Mitchill, as a "drumming 

 noise " ; Dr. DeKay says, when the fish is " freshly taken from the water, it sounds 

 as if two stones were rubbed together." It resembles most the tap of a drum, and 

 is so loud, that, when multitudes of them are collected together, it can be heard in 

 still weather several hundred yards from the water. 



The Drum feeds on various molluscous and crustaceous animals ; during the 

 spawning season, in April, it takes the hook readily enough when baited with 

 prawns, which also appear at that period ; I have also always found the stomach 

 filled with fragments of Scutellae. 



*ti'^ 



Geographical Distribution. The Pogonias cromis ranges along our coast 

 from New York to Cape Florida. 



General Eemarks. Linnaeus first described this fish, from a specimen sent 

 him from Carolina by Dr. Garden, and probably a dried one, as no mention is 



