THE GULF OP MEXICO. 57 



sedipieut from the Mississippi Eiver is filling up the fishing- holes near by. West of the 

 Mississippi, off the coasts of Louisiana and Texas, the bottom is also muddy. Several fishing 

 schooners from Pensacola have carefully explored this region and have found but two or three 

 small patches of hard bottom. These yielded a few fares of red snappers and were left for the time 

 as almost barren. Since they are in shoal water (10 to 20 fathoms) it is probable that they are 

 inhabited only in summer when the water is warm, and even then only to a slight extent. 



On the grounds of the southern portion or district, as I have classed it, the majority of the 

 edible fish taken are groupers, chiefly the red and black groupers {Epinephelns morio and 

 Triaotropis brunneus) while the red snappers are much less abundant. On the northern grounds it is 

 just the opposite, red snappers being more numerous and groupers much less common. Other kinds 

 • of fish are often caught, many of which are not salable. The most common of these are as follows, 

 those marked with an asterisk not being eaten : 



Balistes capriscus. Leather Jacket or Turbot.* 



Epinephelus Drummond-Hayi. Hind. 



Hpinephelus nigritus. Jew-fish, Warsaw. 



Echeneis naucrateoides. Suckerflsh.* 



Liitjanus Stearnsii. Mangrove Snapper. 



Spams pagrtis. Porgee. 



Centropristis atrarius. Sea Bass. 



BhombopUtes aurorubens. Bastard Snapper, 



Lagocephalus Icevigatus. Bottle-fish.* 



Scicenops ocellatus. Channel Bass, Eedfish. 



Batrachus taupardus. Sea Eobin.* 



Seriola bonariensis. Eock Salmon. 



Seriola Stearnsii. Amber-fish. 



Trisotropis falcatus. Scamp. 



Several species of sharks.* 



The off-shore fishing-grounds, off Cedar Keys, where red-snappers, groupers, and such fishes 

 can be caught, lie over thirty miles in a westerly direction from Cedar Keys. From there, by 

 following the deepest water on a southeast or a northwest course, fish are found in abundance, 

 until shoal water is reached, either off Tampa Bay or off Cape Saint George. On these banks 

 groupers, especially the red grouper, are found in greater abundance than to the westward, any 

 where between Cape Saint George and the Mississippi Eiver ; and, on an average, two-thirds of 

 the catch will be groupers and one-third snappers. On the bottom there is a greater deposit of 

 lime rocks, and probably more living corals, etc., than in the Pensacola Bight, which explains the 

 causes of their abundance. 



Along the entire coast there is a tendency among these fishes to move from the shoaler water 

 to off-shore grounds at the approach of cold weather. During mild winters they remain inshore, 

 but during severe seasons they are not to be found there. 



The fishermen prefer to take fish from shoal, water, as it is less laborious than deep-water 

 fishing, and the fish taken there are much hardier and better able to bear transportation alive in 

 vessels' wells than those from very deep water. The consequence is that the grounds of the 

 deep-water regions are not much explored, and it is probable that the most important store of 

 food-fishes of the Gulf has not yet been drawn upon. 



The seining flats are smooth sand-bars lying in the thoroughfares of schooling fishes, and con- 

 veniently located for drawing the seines ashore. Such places are not common along the coasts of 



