FISHES AND FISHING. 215 



and artless their tune ; yet, mellowed and softened 

 by distance, now swelling in chorus, now feeble and 

 faint, it has considerable sweetness, as the human 

 voice always has under such circumstances. Yonder 

 we see them, forming two lines in the water, ten or a 

 dozen men in each row, hauling upon the two ropes ; 

 the outmost up to the neck in the sea, and the in- 

 most on the beach ; all naked, regardless of the burn- 

 ing sun that now pours down his beams upon their 

 woolly heads and glossy backs. It is a slow opera- 

 tion ; and as they all throw their weight upon the 

 line together, they sway backward and forward in 

 time with the wild air whose notes they are singing. 

 In an hour or two the fishes that the seine has in- 

 closed are dragged on shore, and lie gasping and flut- 

 tering on the wet sand. Let us see what they have 

 taken. Here is the usual predominance of Grunts 

 and Snappers, Hamlets and Hinds ; — two pretty 

 Chsetodons, C. capistratus, with its eye-like spot on 

 the tail, and C. striatus, with its black bands; two 

 kinds of Doctor-fish, so called from the curious glassy 

 lancets that they carry in a sheath on each side of 

 the tail, Acanthurus chirurgus, and A. cceruleus ; 

 and a Parrot-fish (^Scarus caruleus), remarkable for 

 its abrupt, almost vertical, profile, white eye, and 

 brilliant azure hue ; I observe that the two divisions 

 of the upper jaw, in this fish, are capable, during life, 

 of separate motion, up and down ; a circumstance, I 

 think, not before noticed. Here is a Murcena, look- 

 ing as if it had been varnished ; another lengthened 

 fish, of curious form, and remarkable style of colour- 

 ing-, rust-red with longitudinal white lines, and nu- 



