124 Recreations of a Sportsman 



music of the sea, as it piled in from the Gulf 

 of California. 



For untold ages the Yaquis, and their an- 

 cestors, and the Mayos, have frequented this 

 coast, and we camped on the vast oyster mound 

 of their forming, which was duplicated in many 

 localities alongshore, suggesting a joyous ex- 

 istence from the standpoint of the epicure, as 

 here were soft-shelled crabs, green turtles, white 

 sea bass, mullet in vast schools, and offshore, 

 in deep water, the finest fishing known. The 

 only criticism of anglers is, that the fish bite too 

 well, and are too large. The white sea bass, 

 which in California is large at fifty pounds, here 

 runs up to one hundred and fifty, and there are 

 others too numerous to mention, still innocent 

 of the wiles of the man with rod and reel, rang- 

 ing from the great manta, or sea bat, twenty 

 feet across, to the game " rooster fish " with its 

 gallant show of fins and many colors. The 

 shores and inlets are alive with plover, snipe, 

 and shore birds of infinite variety, recalling 

 the Florida I knew in the early sixties, before 

 the game fiend had devastated the shores of the 

 State. At night we lay on the beach, and long 

 into the moonlight I listened to the strange 

 sounds. Mullets and sea bass were continually 

 leaping, not fifty feet away, and by raising up 

 I could see, in the clear light, troops of herons, 

 cranes, roseate spoonbills, snipe, curlew, and 



