222 LOWER VERTEBRATES. 



going in schools, but when they are ready to spawn they scatter. The spawning is 

 generally effected at the mouths of rivers and inlets. " The eggs are deposited in 

 shallow water near the shore, and are about the size of mustard seed, and dark. At 

 the spawning season the fish play near the surface and become thin and unfit for food. 

 The young fish are abundant in shallow water among the rocks." As the sheepshead 

 is thin and almost unfit for food when it first appears on the northern coasts, it has 

 been supposed that the spawning season had passed. This, however, requires to be 

 confirmed. 



There seems to be considerable difference in the size of the sheepshead, if we can 

 credit various accounts. According to Professor Goode, in the south, sheepshead 

 are usually small, rarely exceeding two pounds in weight ; but about New York har- 

 bor they sometimes weigh from twelve to fifteen pounds, though the average size is 

 not more than half this weight. 



Other fishes related to the soup and sheepshead are the Lagodon rhomboides, 

 which is best known in the south as pin-fish, and several species of the genus Calamus 

 which are called porgee in the south. 



Closely related to the Sparidae, and sometimes referred to it, are certain fishes 

 which may perhaps be best isolated under the name Lutjanid^. These have much 

 external resemblance to the Sparidse, but there are teeth on the palate, and the jaw 

 teeth are acute, and, what is of more importance, there are peculiarities in the skele- 

 ton, especially in the mode of articulation of the ribs, which at least stamp them as a 

 definable and natural group, whatever may be the opinion as to its value. European 

 naturalists have approximated the species to the Serranidfe, but they unquestionably 

 have more points of agreement with the Sparidse. The species are numerous in the 

 tropical seas, and there are not less (and probably more) than twenty-seven species, rep- 

 resenting eight genera, in the American seas. 



The red-snapper of Florida {Lutjanus vivanus or hlackfordi) is one of the most 

 important and esteemed of southern fishes and has for some years been regularly sent 

 from Florida to New York and other cities. The color, like that of other species of 

 the family which inhabit waters of considerable depths, is a neai-ly uniform rose-red ; 

 the fins are of a brick-red ; the anal fin is angulated by its produced median rays. It 

 ranks among the large market fishes. 



The special home of the red-snapper is on the banks and amidst the reefs of the 

 Gulf of Mexico, and near or along the Florida coast, and northward to the Savannah 

 Bank, but it is quite a traveler, and occasionally (although very rarely) individuals 

 are caught northward even as far as Block Island. About the Florida reefs, and as 

 far north as Tampa Bay, " where there are reefs and rocks, they live in holes and 

 gullies where aU kinds of marine animals and fish are most abundant," and numbers 

 may sometimes be seen congregated " about a solitary ledge protruding over a level 

 bottom of white sand." Such has been the experience of Mr. S. Stearns. They are 

 associates in such places, sometimes of the groupers {Epinephelus) and sometimes of 

 the southern searbass (Centropristis). 



The red-snapper is a carnivorous and a voracious fish, and feeds largely on crabs 

 and prawns, as well as fishes. The contents of their stomachs, indeed, have furnished 

 a number of novelties to naturalists. The breeding season in Florida, according to Mr. 

 Stearns, is in May, June, and July. The eggs are deposited in the bays and at sea. 



A species of Ltitjanus related to the red-snapper is the common gray mangrove 

 or Pensacola snapper (Z. griseus or stearnsii). The color generally is dark greenish 



