118 FISHING IN AMEEICAN WATEES. 



proximately rigid, being fixed and translucent; the rays, 

 though not spinous, remain standing even after life is extinct. 

 These fins are like sails always set, or like a centre-board 

 above as well as in the keel. The body, head, and fins for 

 half an inch are covered with infinitesimal scales. The jaws 

 are very strong, and the gill-covers like three plates of steel. 

 The jaws are armed with a row of strong, closely-set, sharp 

 teeth^ which will cut a cord of one fourth of an inch in diam- 

 eter in two as smoothly as it could be done with a knife, for 

 they are sharp-edged, and those of each jaw are like saw- 

 teeth which match perfectly ; therefore beware of fingers in 

 dislodging a hook from its powerful jaws. 



The young bluefish, which are hatched in quiet nooks of 

 bays along the beaches, wag their way like other estuary 

 younglings, without being provided with a bag of provision 

 suspended by the umbilical cord, like the young of the Salmo 

 genus, but by instinct they propel their tiny selves to the sa- 

 line creeks and inlets from the sea, to prevent being devoured 

 by the parents which visit the spawning beds early in June, 

 to subsist on such of their young as have not yet emigrated. 

 The young fish are vulgarly called " snapper" or " snapping 

 mackerel," and are the bright little predacious thieves which 

 steal by small particles the angler's bait before striped bass 

 or squeteague can get a taste of it. In October, having 

 grown to the weight of half a pound each, the shoal reunites 

 preparatory to going into winter quarters, where the Gulf 

 Stream keeps the water at an even temperature ; and if per- 

 chance they meet gut snells on their way, they bite them in 

 two without effort. During the last fortnight of their sojourn 

 near the shore they purvey for young menhaden and spear- 

 ing, but keep at a respectful distance from shoals of older 

 fish. This is supposed to be the case with nearly all shoals 

 of coast and estuary fishes, and a shoal is merely the progeny 

 of one pair of fishes, and the hatch of one laying of ova. 

 Though in summer they may wander apart for food, yet, 

 warned by an unerring instinct, they reunite in autumn to 

 form an army. 



