314 Big Game Fishes 
April and May, and at Tortugas, as near as could 
be determined, the spawning season was in March. 
While an oceanic fish, the drum enters rivers, and 
I have seen six- or eight-pounders taken with a 
seine between Jacksonville and Mayport on the 
St. Johns, and have caught large specimiens in the 
Nassau River near Fernandina, where the water 
was certainly more than brackish. I have also 
caught large sea-drums near Old Point Comfort, 
some localities being famous for them. Perhaps 
the most remarkable feature of the drum is the 
habit of “drumming,” from which it derives its 
name. I first heard it when fishing in the Chesa- 
peake, the sound being so loud and resonant as 
to be distinctly heard several feet away. On my 
speaking of the incident to the late Professor Baird, 
he told me that some years previous he had gone 
out with a fisherman on the New Jersey coast for 
the purpose of listening to the drums, and that the 
sounds they produced astonished him. A pecul- 
iar feature is that the drumming often sounds 
differently to different persons. To me it was a 
muffled 400m — boom — boom, with a slight reso- 
nance, this from the open water; but later I had 
a number of large drums under my observation 
for several weeks in a large tank, and the sounds 
