The Drum 313 



So dreaded are these fishes by oystermen that 

 the owners of beds have adopted many methods 

 to frighten them, one being to anchor highly 

 colored cloths over the beds, which move up and 

 down with the waves ; others, according to Ernest 

 Ingersoll, drop pieces of tin on the beds, in the 

 hope that the flashes and gleams of light will 

 drive them off. At such times the drums are 

 often found in vast schools, each fish weigh- 

 ing from forty to sixty pounds, and possessed 

 of an extraordinary appetite for oysters in the 

 shell. Such a devastating horde was caught 

 in a school in Great Egg Harbor nine years ago, 

 in a seine ; the fish numbered two hundred and 

 eighteen, and weighed nearly nine thousand 

 pounds. A City Island oysterman reported to 

 Mr. Ernest Ingersoll that drums had mulcted 

 him to the extent of $10,000 in a single 

 season. Similar stories come from almost every 

 locality where the fish is found. 



The fish spawn in the latter part of March, in 

 April and May, in different parts of Florida, those 

 farther south spawning first. Thus down near 

 Cape Florida the fish spawn in March. Upon 

 the upper Florida and Alabama coast and along- 

 shore, according to Silas Stearns, they spawn in 



