126 Fisurisg iv AMERICAN WATERS. 
the islands which form the Elizabeth group, are filled with 
shoals of them all summer and fall, where they forage for 
menhaden and young mackerel; and, anchoring in either of 
the straits which separate those islands, we find that the cast 
of a menhaden bait is usually met by the generous offers of 
half a dozen fish, whose whirls make the tide boil. Were it 
not that the electrical jerk of the bite of a large bluefish has 
such great power in it as to make the angler sometimes feel 
that he too is being fished for, and that its teeth are so sharp 
as to make strong and heavy tackle necessary, it would be 
considered incomparably the highest game-fish of the Ameri- 
can coast. 
When estimating the value of anglers’ fishes by the play 
they give, and the scenes into which the angler is led in 
search of each kind, the bluefish must occupy a foremost 
rank; and the man who has neither trolled nor still-baited for 
this peculiar fish—the best breakfast fish on our coast except 
has two treats in store, which, the 
the Spanish mackerel 
sooner he improves, the earlier he will regret that he had not 
tasted before. 
SECTION TENTH. 
THE SPANISH MACKEREL. 
Lovely with all their spangled dyes, 
Fairer than flush’d autumnal skies, 
With gold-drops all their sides a-glow, 
Tinct like the rainbow’s prismy bow, 
The Spanish mackerel gorgeous roam 
The rolling, yeasty world of foam ; 
Now glittering o’er the waves they skim, 
Now lost in deep abysses swim. 
This incomparable breakfast luxury is a comparative straw 
ger to us, and, though never known to venture as far north 
as the fortieth degree of latitude until about ten years since, 
yet his families are now as numerous on our coast as are those 
of most other estuary fishes. He is coy and careful, slow to 
make acquaintance, and doubtful of a squid or baited hook, 
