276 Big Game Fishes 
guests, that they might be assured that it was 
fresh and directly from the sea. To-day the 
American scarus, the tautog, is disposed of in a 
few words—it is an excellent “chowder fish.” 
I have had rare sport with this fish at the Long 
Island Sound locality referred to. It makes a 
hard fight, though the greatest difficulty gen- 
erally was to keep the bait intact until a large 
fish took it, so insistent were the small fish and 
their cousins, the “cunners” and ‘“nippers.” 
The tautog is taken at Cape Ann, and alongshore 
to Chesapeake Bay, where I have seen it at 
Old Point, and doubtless it ranges farther south, 
specimens having been carried to Charleston, 
South Carolina, in the well of a smack; but it 
is not found in great quantities. Around New- 
port it spawns as early as April, and from then 
on until August. I have heard from fishermen 
of blackfish weighing forty pounds, but a fifteen- 
pound fish was very rare in my fishing experi- 
ences all along the coast. G. Brown Goode 
gives, as the largest specimen known, a black- 
fish which weighed twenty-two and a_ half 
pounds. This was three feet in length, and is 
in the collection of the National Museum. I 
have had fair sport with this fish from the 
