308 Life and Sport on the Pacific Slope 



five to seven feet in length, and weighing from one 

 to three hundred pounds, — a marvel of strength, 

 speed, symmetry, and colour, which bears about the 

 same relation to the coarse and monstrous black 

 bass that the royal Bengal tiger does to the hippo- 

 potamus, or Phoebus Apollo to Daniel Lambert! 



My introduction to this prince of the Pacific was 

 on this wise. My brother and I were trolling for 

 yellow-tail off the Island of Santa Catalina. The 

 sun had just risen above the low fog-banks that 

 obscured the mainland, and was dispersing with 

 gentle authority the children of the mist that 

 loitered upon the face of the waters. Around us, 

 in palest placidity, was the ocean — vast, vague, and 

 mysterious ; abeam, snug in the embrace of bare 

 brown hills, slumbered the tiny town of Avalon. 

 We could see plainly the red facade of the big 

 hotel, the gleaming canvas of a thousand tents, and, 

 dotting the surface of the bay, long rows of pleas- 

 ure boats, gay with white, green, yellow, and blue 

 paint, whose reflected colours danced and sparkled 

 with joyous significance ; for these tender tints, 

 resolved into sound, murmured a rondo of recrea- 

 tion and rest, — a measure enchanting to the ears 

 of work-a-day Californians, whose holidays are so 

 few and far between. 



Suddenly, out of the summer sea, a flying-fish — 

 the humming-bird of ocean — flashed athwart our 

 bows ; and then, not a dozen yards distant, the 

 waters parted, and a huge tuna, in its resplendent 

 livery of blue and silver, swooped with indescrib- 

 able strength and rapidity upon its quarry, catching 

 it, mirabile dictu ! in mid-air. In a fraction of a 



