276 Big Game Fishes 



guests, that they might be assured that it was 

 fresh and directly from the sea. To-day the 

 American scarus, the tautog, is disposed of in a 

 few words it is an excellent "chowder fish." 

 I have had rare sport with this fish at the Long 

 Island Sound locality referred to. It makes a 

 hard fight, though the greatest difficulty gen- 

 erally was to keep the bait intact until a large 

 fish took it, so insistent were the small fish and 

 their cousins, the " cunners " and " nippers." 

 The tautog is taken at Cape Ann, and alongshore 

 to Chesapeake Bay, where I have seen it at 

 Old Point, and doubtless it ranges farther south, 

 specimens having been carried to Charleston, 

 South Carolina, in the well of a smack; but it 

 is not found in great quantities. Around New- 

 port it spawns as early as April, and from then 

 on until August. I have heard from fishermen 

 of blackfish weighing forty pounds, but a fifteen- 

 pound fish was very rare in my fishing experi- 

 ences all along the coast. G. Brown Goode 

 gives, as the largest specimen known, a black- 

 fish which weighed twenty-two and a half 

 pounds. This was three feet in length, and is 

 in the collection of the National Museum. I 

 have had fair sport with this fish from the 





