4 PREFACE 
United States, the Fish Commission steamer ‘‘ Fish Hawk”’ 
was sent to make a complete investigation of the marine life 
of that island, with a party of well-known scientists on 
board. The result of their labours, in a large and exhaustive 
report, was issued in 1900. This volume contains coloured 
life-like plates of many of the fish, all of which are also found 
in our waters, and I am deeply indebted to this book for 
assistance in the nomenclature of the Trinidad Fish. As far 
as I have been enabled to classify them, there are over one 
hundred varieties of sea-fish, of which eighty-five may be 
described as more or less edible, fourteen out of that number 
deserving to rank as high-class table-fish. I have personally 
assisted at the capture with hook, harpoon, net, or fish-pot, 
of every one of the fish indexed, so can guarantee their exist- 
ence. 
I can but trust in launching this little ‘“brochure”’ that 
the reader thereof, when he has digested it, may be a fitting 
companion for those who go down to the sea in boats “tagged 
by the lean fin.”’ 
Harry VINCENT. 
My most grateful thanks are due to those who have 
generously given me many of the really unique photographs 
with which this little work is embellished, namely Messrs. 
C. S. Rogers, Randolph Rust, Thomas Potter, R. R. Mole, 
and our Entomologist, F. W. Urich. Also to Mr. Vicente 
Marryatt, whose neat and elegant draughtsmanship has been 
of material assistance to me in the production of the chart 
of the Bocas. | 
Harry VINCENT. 
