THE BLACK SEA BASS 



appeared to have been painted by the setting sun in deep reds, 

 vermilion, pink, splashes of blue and yellow. From this grew, 

 apparently, countless reticulated fans and plumes of brown, 

 vivid golden-yellow, rose and lavender. These were gorgonias, 

 cousins of the corals, and as they waved to and fro, bending in 

 the mysterious inward rush of water, the change of tint and tone 

 was kaleidoscopic and marvellous beyond description. Some 

 of the fans resembling velvet, rose four feet from the bottom ; 

 beneath them were flat branches of the leaf coral in browns or 

 olives, taking countless shapes. Others were in the form of great 

 mounds, or hollowed out like classic vases in which brilliant 

 angel-fishes poised, or the gaily painted yellowtail or parrot-fish 

 hid. 



At such time the gulf, as far as the eye could reach, would be a 

 sheet of glass, not a ripple disturbing its surface ; and moving 

 out from the shore until the water was fifty or one hundred feet 

 in depth, it was so clear, so crystaUine, that every object, even 

 to the delicate reddish shells on the gorgonias, could be seen and 

 the black echimi in the crevices, or the deeper black of the Cypreae. 

 'No garden of the land had more beauties, while the mjTiads of 

 fishes carried out the idea of birds as they moved to and fro. 



In various parts of the world large bass-Uke fishes are found 

 which resemble bass in shape if in no other way. There were 

 two dwellers in this garden of the gorgonias, of gigantic size ; 

 one caUed the black grouper, the other the jewfish. One was a 

 heavy logy giant, often found in deep holes and crevices ; the 

 other, the black grouper, in mid-water. The jewfish might be 

 called the hippopotamus of the sea, as individuals weighing one 

 thousand pounds have been taken. The average is three or four 

 himdred pounds, and the large specimens, while they cannot be 

 classed as a game fish and are practically impossible to the man 

 with the rod, on ahand-hne afford no little excitement. I have 

 taken them while shark fishing, and believed I had a shark until 

 the ponderous big-mouth creature came up the sands, the whole 

 party on the line. 



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