314 Big Game Fishes 



April and May, and at Tortugas, as near as could 

 be determined, the spawning season was in March. 

 While an oceanic fish, the drum enters rivers, and 

 I have seen six- or eight-pounders taken with a 

 seine between Jacksonville and Mayport on the 

 St. Johns, and have caught large specimens in the 

 Nassau River near Fernandina, where the water 

 was certainly more than brackish. I have also 

 caught large sea-drums near Old Point Comfort, 

 some localities being famous for them. Perhaps 

 the most remarkable feature of the drum is the 

 habit of "drumming," from which it derives its 

 name. I first heard it when fishing in the Chesa- 

 peake, the sound being so loud and resonant as 

 to be distinctly heard several feet away. On my 

 speaking of the incident to the late Professor Baird, 

 he told me that some years previous he had gone 

 out with a fisherman on the New Jersey coast for 

 the purpose of listening to the drums, and that the 

 sounds they produced astonished him. A pecul- 

 iar feature is that the drumming often sounds 

 differently to different persons. To me it was a 

 muffled boom boom boom, with a slight reso- 

 nance, this from the open water; but later I had 

 a number of large drums under my observation 

 for several weeks in a large tank, and the sounds 



