296 Big Game Fishes 



vation. The bonito is eaten on the California 

 coast, but the flesh is coarse and very different 

 from that of the delicious Spanish mackerel. It 

 is well to remember, however, that there is only 

 one cook in a thousand who understands how to 

 cook a fish. In point of fact, every fish is a gas- 

 tronomic study by itself ; some should be eaten im- 

 mediately after the catch, and this is particularly 

 true of the mackerel tribe, always excepting 

 the salt mackerel of Marc Antony, which, we are 

 assured by Plutarch, constitutes the theme for his 

 true fish story, involving the caprice of Cleopatra. 

 How many anglers have played this same joke 

 on an unsuspecting friend! And lest there be 

 some son of Ananias who claims it as new, the 

 story may be recalled. It seems that Antony and 

 Cleopatra, according to veracious Plutarch, were 

 fishing, probably in the Nile; and wishing to 

 make the noble Antony a victim to her wit, she 

 instructed a slave to slip over and dive down and 

 fasten upon his hook a dried salt fish, supposed 

 to be a mackerel. The slave obeyed, and when 

 the act was accomplished, gave the line a vigor- 

 ous jerk, holding on while Antony tugged and 

 played, until the slave lost his breath, then landed 

 the salted and ancient fish. At this point the 



