Game Fishes of the Colonies 401 



now known as the perro perro, and often ignomin- 

 iously caught in pots, and there are a host of 

 bait-eaters, as doncella, a beautiful little parrot- 

 fish, chaetodonts, and many more. The Porto 

 Rican waters abound in parrot-fishes, found on the 

 coral reef, the cotoro verde, loro Colorado, and vieja 

 Colorado being particularly common, some attain- 

 ing a weight of twenty pounds or more. Among 

 them is found the familiar spadefish, here known 

 as paguala, tipping the scales from eight to 

 twenty pounds. The tarpon is a very common 

 fish about Porto Rico, but I cannot learn that 

 any one has ever taken it there for sport, and as 

 the flesh is very poor there is no incentive for the 

 local fishermen to catch the sabalo, as it is some- 

 times called. Barton W. Evermann, who is the 

 authority on the fishes of Porto Rico, and who 

 has made an elaborate and valuable report to the 

 government on the subject, entitled General Re- 

 port on the Investigations in Porto Rico of the 

 United States Fish Commission Steamer Fish 

 Hawk, in 1889, made some interesting discoveries 

 at Hucares relating to the young of the tarpon, 

 finding several young fishes ranging from two to 

 seven inches in length at the former place and at 

 Fajardo. I have made many attempts to learn 



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