320 AMERICAN FISHES. 



THE DRUM. 



NEITHER to catch nor to cook the Drum, will I teach you, gentle 

 reader mine, for he is not worth the hook which he will probably carry 

 away, if you strike him, nor the salt which you might waste in season- 

 ing him. 



Unless in his vast size and great power, he has no merit, and in 

 these he is surpassed by the Shark, the Porpoise, and the Whale, for 

 which I should about as soon think of angling. 



BLUE-FISH FISHING. 



A GENERAL favorite from his southern to his extreme northern 

 limit, this great Mackerel is every where an object of pursuit, and 

 deserves to be so, both for the fun of taking and the pleasure of eating 

 him. When fresh from the water he is superlative. A very bold and 

 daring biter, he is caught in great numbers in swift tide-ways, eddies 

 and inlet mouths. In the Sound, in the Long Island South Bay chan- 

 nels, in the inlets of the Jersey beaches, from June to August, he 

 affords rare sport. 



Sail for him in a large cat-rigged boat, and the fresher the breeze, 

 and the brisker the sea, the better. In large schulls he swims near 

 the surface, leaping at every living thing which crosses his track of 

 devastation. 



When you have the luck to strike a schull, stick to it perseveringly, 



