io6 Big Game Fishes 



sible conception which the imagination might 

 devise, is seen, glorified by the sunlight and 

 bathed in marvellous tints of green, while 

 through every interstice the deep-blue water 

 forms a matchless mosaic. At low tide the 

 long fluted leaves lie like snakes upon the sur- 

 face, the wind often lifting them, but at the flood 

 they are submerged and swing in the current at 

 an angle of thirty-five or forty degrees ; now 

 straightening up or turning, according to the 

 whim or fancy of the mysterious currents which 

 are found about these islands bathed by the 

 Kuroshiwo, the great Black Current of Japan. 



This submarine forest is the home of the king 

 of the bass, Stereolepis gigas (Ayres), the gigantic 

 black sea-bass, possibly the largest of all the 

 serranoids. In appearance it bears a marked 

 resemblance to the small black bass. Imagine 

 a small-mouth black bass seven feet in length, 

 weighing six or seven hundred pounds, and some 

 idea of this monster, which is a common fish in 

 the region described, may be conceived. It has 

 been my good fortune to see the fish in its native 

 haunts. Lying prone on the deck of a small 

 boat, with my face within a foot of the water, I 

 was watching my bait forty feet down among 



