The White Sea- bass 19 



from the high rocky ridge, and all nature seemed 

 asleep. As my eyes rested on the picture, an 

 ideal place to play a fish, the unexpected 

 happened. Two, three, four, five fins came into 

 view from behind a rocky point just as I had 

 been figuring them, as though some one had 

 given the cue and the finny actors had stepped 

 out from the wings on to the scene, a tragedy in 

 one act. They moved along with great delibera- 

 tion, the big dorsals waving gently and the tips 

 of the caudal far astern, so that it was an easy 

 matter to construct the entire hidden fish. It 

 was a school of white sea-bass, apparently none of 

 which was under fifty pounds. On they came, 

 not twenty feet from the beach, and, as I rose, 

 their bulky forms were sharply outlined against 

 the dark olive-hued bottom. 



My rod and line, baited with flying-fish, was 

 lying in the small boat note this premonition 

 of coming fisherman's luck. It took but a mo- 

 ment to grasp it, and so deft and agile was the 

 boatman that my bait, as he pulled offshore, 

 crossed the school, dazzling the very eyes of the 

 dignified strollers along this fishes' rialto. One 

 at least resented the intrusion. There was a 

 swirl of waters, a boiling seething as the school 



