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356 Big Game Fishes 
determined the resistance, that one is easily over- 
matched. 
In watching the fish I found that it made its 
sturdy resistance by keeping its broad side to 
me, fighting inch by inch; and when wearied it 
would bound upward and wear away round on the 
other tack, presenting its opposite front, all the 
time making a struggle that could but arouse 
the admiration of the angler. These experiences 
were, of course, with light rod and delicate tackle. 
With a twenty-five-ounce rod six and a half feet 
long, and a large line, the angel-fishes would 
drop back into the ranks of “bait stealers ” and 
not be considered worth catching, nor indeed 
would a trout under the same circumstances. 
I have seen the black angel-fish taken in Vir- 
ginia, though rarely, its home being in tropical 
seas, and on the Florida reef and the West Indies 
in general. There it is one of the commonest of 
fishes, and by no means a poor table fish, though 
there is a strong prejudice against it in some 
localities, many believing it to be poisonous. 
Not so common, but a gamy catch, is the 
yellow angel-fish, Holacanthus ccliaris, with brill- 
iant yellow margins to its scales, its body not 
so elevated as in the black angel, the tip of what 
