CHAPTER IX. 



The Blackfish — Tautoga onitis — Lmn. 



The fish we treat of in this paper are humbler members of the 

 finny tribe than those mentioned in the first articles. They 

 cannot lay claim to beiuty, nor to more than indifferent gaminess, 

 yet they compensate for this great lacking by their number, their 

 toothsomeness, and by the fact that they are the first to come and 

 almost the last to go ; and also that they run nearest the great city, 

 up to the very wharves, affording intense delight to the very lowest 

 of the angling fraternity — the newsboy after he has sold his last paper, 

 the bootblack whose jobs are few, and the market lounger who has- 

 come into possession of a lobster thrown out of one of the trim fish- 

 ing smacks. 



At any day in the fishing season all along the East and North 

 rivers the string pieces of the wharves are alive with bare-legged 

 hatless urchins, each with a piece of lobster for bait, and all engaged 

 in tempting from the depths " tommies," eels or " nigger-fish." 



The fish that will be described below are properly termed " pan- 

 fish," and at the head of the list of such fish we would with pro'priety 

 place the blackfish, or tautog. His firm flesh and frequently large size, 

 and his disposition to resist capture almost equalling the bluefish, 

 would perhaps permit of his being classified among the game fish of 

 our shore waters, but as he will not take a surface lure that would per- 

 haps be objected to by many. 



A close and strictly scientific description of these pan-fish would 

 not be necessary, so I will describe the fish of this paper from an 

 angler's point of view. 



The blackfish in color is of every shade of grey, often only marked 



