THE GAME FISHES OF THE WOELD 



The very earliest •writers and dreamers recognized this. The 

 fisher eclogues found place in the works of Sannazaro before 

 1503, and this author gave his contemporaries pastorals like those 

 of Virgil, except that they were of the fishes, anglers and the 

 sea. Theocritus gave us marine pastorals, and the Ihad abounds 

 in descriptions of hfe afield and refers to angling. 



ISo waters are more beautiful than those of England if we 

 remember the sea anemones of the pools and think of them as the 

 animal flowers of the sea. This can be realized after a storm when 

 the sea-wrack is piled upon the sands, and the gardens of the 

 sea have been devastated. Every colour of the rainbow scintil- 

 lates in the sunlight and tells the story of the fishes. 



Possibly in the semi-tropics, the water is clearer, at least it is 

 smoother, and in Bermuda the angler is regaled with real gardens 

 of the sea, inhabited by fishes which vie with the living flowers. 

 For many years I Uved in the heart of a group of coral islands 

 of the same character as Bermuda, in the Gulf near Havana — 

 the Garden Key of the Tortugas group. Every day was devoted 

 to angling of some sort or description, varied with studies of the 

 reef, diving into its channels or wading along its streets and lanes 

 of coral at low tide. I was always impressed by the self-evident 

 fact that there were gardens of the sea, mountains covered with 

 verdure, plains, prairies, plantations, and diversities only to be 

 compared to those of the land. The colouring was particularly 

 beautiful, especially off the coral reef as it merged into deeper 

 water. Here the east wind sent a sea continually in, which had 

 piled up a line of dead coral rock a mile or more in length, and 

 bare at low tide — an island in embryo. Twenty or thirty feet 

 out beyond this was a famous fishing ground for a large variety 

 of fishes, which swam over a forest of radiant beauty. On calm 

 days when the sleepy swell was just sufficient to sway the gor- 

 gonian trees, I often drifted along the reef or waded out, waist- 

 deep, and cast my lure of crayfish, sardine or mullet into the 

 rialto of the fishes. 



The bottom was covered with a carpet of weed of hues which 

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