82 FISHING IN AMERICAN TV ATERS. 



the estuaries of the larger rivers. Great quantities are then 

 taken in seines, pounds, and set-nets, which supply the marble 

 stands of the markets lately vacated by the shad. The sque- 

 teague at this time divides interest with the early run of blue- 

 fish, and about the middle of June the sheepshead visit us, 

 when the variety includes also tautog and black bass, with 

 the bonetta, cero, and the incomparable Spanish mackerel. 

 These do not include any of the fresh-water fishes, of which 

 the black bass is very numerous in June. 



SECTION SECOND. 



SOUTHERN SEA TROUT. 



From Delaware Bay all along the Southern coast, and in 

 the estuaries of rivers which debouch into a bay or arm of 

 the Atlantic, this fish is taken in great numbers with nets 

 and angling tackle, and is known as the " sea trout." Both 

 its habits and play are so much like those of the squeteague, 

 or weakfish, that anglers along the coast of New Jersey 

 term it the spotted weakfish, to distinguish it from the oth- 

 er, which they call the niottled weakfish ; but the inhabit- 

 ants of the coast from Delaware to Florida know it only as 

 the " sea trout," or " spotted silversides." 



SOUTHERN SEA TROUT. " Otolithus reyalis." 



The body of the sea trout is more round, and it is smaller 

 from the tail to the second dorsal and anal fins than the weak- 

 fish or squeteague. Its meat is also firmer, and the flakes 

 closer and more compact, while its silver-gray back and sides 

 are of a bluish tint, which shines like burnished steel, and its 

 belly and the lower fins are white, without a yellow tinge. 



