462 FISHING IN AMEEICAN WATERS. 



SECTION SECOND. 



THE CAVALLO. Species of Carangus. 



This is a beautiful and excellent fish of the Florida waters. 

 It is beginning to visit our bays and inlets, the first hav- 

 ing appeared along the New Jersey coast, and between the 

 Narrows and Fire Island, in 1871, and every summer since; 

 but, like the advent of the bonetta, which lias now become 

 too numerous, it advances in small shoals, like scouts sent 

 out to find foraging-ground. Without doubt, the menhaden 

 (vulgarly called moss-bunker) is the chief bait-fish which has 

 attracted the half-dozen families of excellent food-fishes from 

 the Bahamas and the Southern coasts within the past ten 

 years, headed by the Spanish mackerel, and the cav.illo and 

 pompano bringing up the rear. 



The pompano having a wide reputation for being one of 

 the best breakfast fishes in the world, and the cavallo resem- 

 bling it in shape and beauty of tints, sparkling with small 

 scales, the fish-dealers at once called it the pompano, and it 

 commanded over a dollar a pound ; but as it became more 

 abundant, and the real pompano appeared, it fell below the 

 Spanish mackerel in price. 



The weight of this fish is from three to fifteen pounds; 

 and it will be seen by comparing the engravings from the 

 drawings made of the fishes when present, that the cavallu 

 is a much more beautiful fish in outline than the pompano. 



