The Sheepshead 327 
fish from the north beach at Old Point Comfort, 
where they were evidently feeding upon the crabs 
which fairly covered the bottom at times. The 
bait used was a single soft-shelled crab — a kill- 
ing lure. There are numerous fishing-grounds 
about New York bay well known to boatmen at 
Staten Island, Fort Hamilton, on the New Jersey 
shore, Jamaica Bay, Fire Island, South Bay, and 
various other localities. All these places have 
their habitués; some fish with hand-lines, some 
with rods, who have the shallow mussel beds and 
other “spots” located off which they anchor, cast- 
ing on to the bank with good, bad, or indifferent 
results depending upon tide and weather. The 
“beds” can be often recognized by the quantities of 
broken mussel shells. On the outer Florida reef 
the feeding-ground of the porgies, as they were 
called, could be determined by a dark spot on the 
otherwise clear sand of a shallow lagoon, sur- 
rounded by the broken shells of bivalves. The 
Hon. William Elliott, in his delightful “Carolina 
Sports on Land and Water,” describes the sport 
in Port Royal Sound, where large enclosures were 
built out into the water to encourage the growth 
of shell-fish — the food of the sheepshead. Stands 
were also erected for the angler, who was a man 
