ON THE EAST COAST OF FLORIDA. 271 



This perplexity is caused, in part, by the existence and general use 

 of the same common or popular name for two widely differentiated 

 fish. I have passed many winters in Florida, and have, doubtless, 

 caught more than a thousand of the so-called ' ladyfish or bonefish,' 

 and in 1895, my companion, Mr. J. L. Petrie, the artist, painted a 

 portrait of one, in oils, before its life colors had faded, on examina- 

 tion of which it was plain to see that it was not the true bonefish, 

 Albala vulpes, although so called on both coasts of Florida. It was 

 a full brother of the tarpon — a big-eyed herring, Elops saurus, a 

 fish that has many of the physical markings of the silver king, and 

 some of its game qualities when restrained by the rod. That the 

 angler may, on sight, distingush one from the other, illustrations of 

 both are given. Upon examination of a captured fish, it will be 

 seen that the true bonefish, A. vulpes, has fifteen rays in the dorsal 

 fin and eight in the anal, and the ladyfish, or more properly the big- 

 eyed herring, E. saurus, has twenty rays in the dorsal and thirteen in 

 the anal fin. The first-named fish is much stouter in build, has large 

 scales and is brilliantly silvery in color, shading into olive on the 

 back, with faint streaks along the rows of scales. The big-eyed her- 

 ring has much smaller scales, is also of a bright silvery coloration, 

 but in lieu of the olivaceous shading above the lateral line and on the 

 back, which occurs in the true bonefish, there is a distinct, but soft, 

 bluish coloration extending from the shoulder to the fleshy part of 

 the tail. 



"It is difficult to ascertain from the articles appearing from time 

 time in the sportsman's journals, on the capture of the ladyfish or 

 bonefish, which of these two fishes the writers are describing, but in 

 most instances they doubtless refer to the big-eyed herring, as the 

 frantic leaps of the fish are described in glowing terms. The Hon. 

 Matthew S. Quay wrote me in 1882: 'The bonyfish — I took two 

 of them, two feet in length, each, on a spinner at Jupiter and one at 

 Punta Rassa. They resemble the herring, except they are narrower 

 in proportion to their length. When hooked, they are as frantic in 

 their leaps as the tarpon.' 



"These fish were certainly the big-eyed herring, E. saurus. The 

 true bonefish does not leap from the water when under the restraint 

 of the line. 



"The bonefish or ladyfish, Albula vulpes — generic name from 

 the Latin, 'white'; the specific, also Latin, meaning 'fox' — is 



