nir: siii:i:i'siii:.\i) FAMILY. 381 



0. SHEEPSHEAD, BASS, BREAM, PERCH, ETC. 



THE SHEEPSHEAD FAMILY SPARID^J. 



The members of this family are especially characterized by their heavy, rather compressed 

 bodies, and by their large heads, strong jaws and teeth, for cutting or crushing the hard-shelled 

 marine animals upon which they feed. They are usually sedentary in their habits, living close to 

 the bottom and browsing among the rocks and piles. Their colors are usually inconspicuous and 

 their motions sluggish. Representatives of this family are found throughout the world in temperate 

 and tropical waters. 



128. THE SHEEPSHEAD DIPLODUS PROBATOCEPHALUS. 



The Sheepshead is one of the choicest fishes of our coast. It derives its name from the 

 resemblance of its profile and teeth to those of a sheep, and also from its browsing habits. Unlike 

 most of those fishes which are widely distributed along our seaboard, it has only this one name 

 by which it is known from Cape Cod to the Mexican border. The negroes of the South, however, 

 frequently drop the "s" out of the middle of the word and call it " Sheephead." 



This fish has never been known to pass to the north of the sandy arm of Cape Cod, and its 

 northern range is at present somewhat more limited than it was eighty years ago. In the records 

 of Wareham, Massachusetts, they are referred to as being somewhat abundant in 1803, and in 

 Narragausett Bay there is a tradition that they began to disappear in 1793, when the scuppaug 

 commenced to increase in abundance. In 1871, Mr. E. Taylor, of Newport, testified before Professor 

 Baird that his father caught Sheepshead in abundance forty-five or fifty years previous. In 1870 

 and 1871 the species was again coming into notice in this region, though not at that time nor since 

 has it appeared abundantly. On the south shore of Long Island it is quite abundant, and in New 

 York Harbor and its various approaches, at times, may be taken in considerable numbers. On the 

 coast of New Jersey it is also abundant, and between Cape May and Montauk Point the species is 

 said to attain its greatest perfection as a food-fish. Lugger states that it frequents the oyster 

 localities of all parts of the Chesapeake Bay, but is now more common among the southeastern 

 counties of Virginia, where it comes in considerable numbers to feed upon the animals which live 

 on the oyster bars. It is found about wrecks of old vessels, on which barnacles and shells abound. 

 About Bedford, North Carolina, it is also abundant, and also along the entire coast of the Atlantic 

 and Gulf States, where it frequently ascends, especially in Florida, high up the fresh-water rivers. 

 In the Gulf, according to Stearns, it is abundant on the coast from Southern Florida to Mexico. 



The Sheepshead is a bottom-loving species, quiet in its habits, and little given to wandering. 

 North of Charleston it is absent from the inshore waters during the winter season, but it is probable 

 that its wanderings do not extend very far. Holbrook records that it has been taken in Port Royal 

 Sound as early as January, while in Charleston it makes it appearance in April and continues 

 until November. Dr. Mitchill, whose observations of this species in the vicinity of New York, 

 made sixty years ago, are perhaps as satisfactory as any which have been made, remarked that 

 its term of continuance was from the beginning of June to the middle of September. He 

 had, however, known it to stay later, for one of the most numerous collections of Sheeps- 



