CHAPTER XV 
THE GROUPERS 
“You strange, astonished-looking, angle-faced, 
Dreary-mouthed, gaping wretches of the sea, 
Gulping salt water everlastingly, 
Cold-blooded, though with red your blood be graced, 
And mute, though dwellers in the roaring waste.” 
— Leich Hunt. Zhe Man to the Fish. 
In visiting different fishing-grounds, hunting 
for new fields to conquer in the sea, or along- 
shore, the sea angler instinctively contrasts or 
compares the various fishes he catches with those 
of other regions which he has known, and fre- 
quently finds many points of resemblance. The 
bluefish is represented on the Pacific coast by 
the yellowtail, the latter completely filling its 
place to the sportsman but not to the epicure. 
In Florida, where the cod is not found, it has a 
representative in a number of serranoid fishes, 
the groupers, which as food-fishes are almost 
equal to, and as sport rank much higher than, the 
cod. 
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