178 Big Game Fishes 
almost white; the very young maroon barred with 
black. 
Owing to this diversity of colors the fish is 
known by various names along the coast —the 
fathead, or redfish, being the most familiar; but 
at the islands, where it is taken with a rod as a 
game fish, it is known as the sheepshead, and to 
science as Pimelometopon pulcher (Ayres). The 
average fish ranges from ten to fifteen pounds, 
but I have seen large males which would weigh 
twenty or twenty-five pounds. The sheepshead 
spawns at the islands in June or July, depositing 
its eggs in the kelp beds near shore; and these 
ocean forests are its home, where, amid the most 
esthetic surroundings, it poises in company with 
the colossal black sea-bass. The islands of 
Southern California and much of the mainland 
coast have this border of kelp, which is a fishes’ 
highway,—-a maze of vines (macrocystis) of 
enormous length, whose leaves, long, broad, and 
richly tinted in olive-green, rise from great depths 
and sway in the current, or at ebb tide lie along 
the surface, their fluted edges fluttering in the 
soft wind, often waving slightly above it. 
This submarine forest is the salvation of the 
fishes. It forms an effective breakwater, without 
