The Gray Snapper 45 



The fact that the gray snapper affects com- 

 paratively shallow water makes it especially avail- 

 able to rod fishermen. It frequents old wharves 

 and similar places. It is difficult to describe the 

 color of the living snapper. I have taken indi- 

 viduals showing great variety of tints, but, as a 

 rule, the deeper the water the more brilliant the 

 coloring. Some fishes are a dark greenish hue, 

 the centre of the scales showing a burnished 

 black, the lower portion being a reddish coppery 

 hue, very brilliant, giving the entire fish a sug- 

 gestion of red golden bronze. Others, and par- 

 ticularly large specimens, taken by me at Garden 

 Key, where the bottom was gray sand, were 

 almost pure gray, suggestive of the specific name 

 griseus given the fish by Linnaeus. 



An interesting and very gamy snapper, a valu- 

 able food fish, at nearly all the West India 

 Islands and Florida keys, is known as the dog 

 snapper (Lutianus jocu). Its habits are similar 

 to those of the gray snapper. The latter is 

 at the head, so far as game qualities are con- 

 cerned, of a large group of snappers, comprised 

 in the family Lutianidae, and is the largest, but 

 its many relatives and the famous red snapper, 

 L^ltianus aya afford excellent sport on the reef, 



