The Hog fish 127 



The deep-water forms, from forty or fifty feet, 

 are the most beautiful ; those which have been in 

 shallows for some time are less pronounced. So 

 marked is this variation of color and difference 

 between the sexes, and old and young, that the 

 unfortunate hogfish has, like others, been named 

 so many times that with the channel-bass it might 

 take the prize as a terrible example of the insati- 

 ate pursuit of names and new species. Leopold 

 von Buch, the well-known geologist of Berlin, 

 and friend of the lamented Agassiz, once said, 

 " When I am at Neuchatel and I knock at the 

 door of Agassiz I am always afraid." " Why ? " 

 asked a listener. " I dread," said Von Buch, " lest 

 he take me for a new species." It is only just to 

 say that Agassiz never experimented with the 

 nomenclature of the hogfish. Among other 

 names it is el capitan, and in Jamaica and Porto 

 Rico, perro perro ; but among the Conchs on the 

 reef, and the Bahamians, I never heard these 

 names: it was always the hogfish. One of the 

 finest table fishes in America, game in every 

 sense, yet fate ordains it to be " yanked " in, by 

 the smack fishermen, with grouper lines. 



The hogfish, of which there is but one species, 

 belongs to the family Labridce (the Wrasse- 



