CHAPTER II. 



The Bluefish. — Fo)naiomuti sallatrlx. — Gill. 



Tlie bluefish, at once the most destructive .vid orjo of the most im- 

 portant, from an economic point of view, of uJl coast fishes, is next 

 on the list of gamy denizens of the sea. 



The bluefish has not always been taken on the North Atlantic 

 seaboard of the United States, but made his appearance there for the 

 first time during the first decade of the century. But since that mi- 

 gration from more Southern waters, vast schools of bluefish have 

 swept along the coast of the Atlantic States year after year, without 

 a single season being omitted. It is thought by many that this rapa- 

 cious foreigner came from the warm seas surroundino- the West 

 Indies. Be that as it may, he certainly has the bloodthirsty habits 

 and murderous ways of the Spanish buccaneers, who once infested 

 those islands. 



The bluefish in his annual visits, as some one has recently esti- 

 mated, slaughters billions of the smaller fishes, killing in mere wan- 

 tonness. He drives before him immense schools of the mossbunkers, 

 and anon dashes into their midst, cutting right and left with his 

 sharp teeth. They do not eat one-tenth of what they slay, but for 

 the most part take one round, clean bite out of each victim, leaving 

 their bodies to float on the waves, " a prey to the birds that sail in 

 the air." It is this fact that betrays the whereabouts of the bluefish; 

 for the long-winged gulls hover above every school of them, picking 

 ip the floating crumbs in the shape of dead fish from the bluefishes' 

 <Dable. The fishermen on shore watch till they see the gulls sailing 



