294 Big Game Fishes 
game had arrived. When I reached the launch 
the water appeared to be alive with forms dashing 
about with great velocity. When a handful of 
sardines was tossed over they charged them from 
the channel a few feet away, picking them up with 
great rapidity, then disappearing. Almost the 
moment a cast was made, almost before the bait 
was set in motion by the reel, the strike came, and 
a blaze of color dashed along the surface to the 
music of the click. Always on the surface, — no 
sulking here, — darting this way and that, in and 
out around the launch, this bonito, the skipjack 
of the sailors, was the peer of any trout in the 
world, and only after a struggle was it brought 
in; and then one could but regret the capture of 
so beautiful a fish. It was robed in silver satin 
below, merging into vivid blue above, with dusky 
stripes, and over all, flashing and scintillating, an 
iridescence in pink, blue, and yellow, which made 
it one of the most charming of the finny dwellers 
of the Californian sea. The bonito is short and 
very plump, and when lifted by the gaff or net (the 
latter is to be preferred, as the fish bleeds badly) 
it quivers so violently as to impart a disagreeable 
sensation to one who attempts to hold it by the 
tail. 
