CHAPTER XV 



THE GROUPERS 



" You strange, astonished-looking, angle-faced, 

 Dreary-mouthed, gaping wretches of the sea, 

 Gulping salt water everlastingly, 

 Cold-blooded, though with red your blood be graced, 

 And mute, though dwellers in the roaring waste." 



LEIGH HUNT. The Man to the Fish. 



IN visiting different fishing-grounds, hunting 

 for new fields to conquer in the sea, or along- 

 shore, the sea angler instinctively contrasts or 

 compares the various fishes he catches with those 

 of other regions which he has known, and fre- 

 quently finds many points of resemblance. The 

 bluefish is represented on the Pacific coast by 

 the yellowtail, the latter completely filling its 

 place to the sportsman but not to the epicure. 

 In Florida, where the cod is not found, it has a 

 representative in a number of serranoid fishes, 

 the groupers, which as food-fishes are almost 

 equal to, and as sport rank much higher than, the 

 cod. 



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