30 Big Game Fishes 
The white sea-bass is eminently sociable, and 
if the angler remains quiet, the passing school 
will merely divide at the anchor rope of the 
boat: I have inadvertently touched one with 
an oar. At such a time, looking down, the 
water appears filled with the splendid fish, which 
resemble gigantic salmon, and often their utter 
contempt for all kinds of bait is maddening 
to the most philosophical angler. 
In the Gulf of California a large species of 
this genus is found, known to science as Cyno- 
scion macdonald: and called at Guaymas /otu- 
ava. Itisastouter, bulkier fish than C. zodzzs, 
and exceeds it in size. An old boatman who 
had wandered up the Gulf informed me that 
he had caught these fish weighing two or three 
hundred pounds, but he probably confused it 
with the Gulf jewfish. There is a record of 
a fish which weighed one hundred and seventy- 
two pounds, hence two hundred pounds is pos- 
sible. A friend who fished for them at San 
Jorgas Bay, not far from the island of Tiburon, 
considered them identical with C. xodzl’s, and 
supposed it was the same fish; but instead of 
averaging forty or fifty pounds the fish he caught 
tipped the scales at eighty pounds. At San 
