58 GAME FISH OF FLORIDA. 



reputation, though having had the good fortune to 

 catch and eat a pompano in Florida I am prepared to 

 admit its claims for merit of the highest order. IIol- 

 brook is the only writer who, to my knowledge, gives a 

 scientific description of this fish, and he apparently con 

 founds it with the cavalli or crevalle, which much 

 resembles it in appearance. In his &quot; Fishes of South 

 Carolina,&quot; he heads his description &quot; The Pompano, 

 Bothrolcemus pampanus. Synonyms Licliia Carolina, 

 (Dekay and Storer;) Trachinotus pampanus (Cuvier 

 and Val) ; vulgo, cavalli or crevalle ; known in New 

 Orleans as pompynose.&quot; Page 11. 



The fish known on the coast of Florida as the cavalli 

 or crevalle, I take to be Caraux defensor (Dekay), which 

 belongs to the same family as B. pampanus f but is of 

 different habits and merit, and has important structural 

 distinctions. 



The pompano has a truncated snout, rather a small 

 mouth without teeth, jaws strong and massive, eye of 

 moderate size, body much compressed and deep, about 

 one-third the length ; first dorsal fin represented by six 

 spines ; second dorsal soft and extending to the tail ; 

 anal fin extending to the tail also. The pompano is a 

 bottom fish, and is found singly. My specimen was 

 taken in the Hillsboro river, near New Smyrna, with 

 clam bait, w r hile fishing on the bottom for sheepshead. 

 It weighed only two and a half pounds, but made so 

 furious a resistance that I thought I had a large sheeps 

 head hooked foul. It ran in circles, darted under the 

 boat, fouled our lines, and made fuss enough for a fish 

 of three times it size. As soon as our boatman saw it he 

 shouted, &quot; A pompano ! and the first I ever saw caught 

 with a hook in this river ! &quot; This man had fished on the 



