THE GAME FISHES OP THE WOELD 



tail fifteen or twenty feet in Length, tinted, splashed with pink 

 and lavender. Other jelly-fishes as large as the closed fist are 

 turquoise of the more delicate hue, while here and there the most 

 delicate and radiant forms appear, from the classic shape of 

 Circe to the glorious Pyrosoma which illumines the sea at night. 



Such are but a few of the forms which fill this blue sun-room of 

 the upper ocean, up through which the little bonito rushes, its back 

 coloured by the artist that painted the blue of the eternal deeps ; 

 a living tourmaUne that is even more beautiful when caught, 

 its silvery skin blazing and flashing with ten thousand tints and 

 coruscations. Well can the angler hesitate to devastate the 

 sea. At least these delightful objects are among the compensa- 

 tions when the fish do not bite, as is sometimes the case. 



There is another, the oceanic bonito, a larger, longer fish, 

 taken in the spring months off the islands of Santa Catalina and 

 San Clemente. It runs up to fifteen pounds and is a game fish in 

 every sense. When coursing these radiant seas in pursuit of 

 game of various kinds, the angler often goes several miles at sea 

 to the southwest of Santa Catalina in what he calls the ' doldrums,' 

 or a point where the wind dies down and is nearly always a dead 

 calm, due to the lee afforded by the island. Here great patches of 

 kelp often collect, under which at times are found the re- 

 splendent dolphin, CorypJiaena Mppurus. In the heroic poem, 

 ' The Shield of Heracles,' supposed by some to be by Hesiod, 

 we read : 



' And in the midst, 

 FuU many dolphins chased the fry and showed 

 As though they swam the waters, to and fro. 

 Darting tumultuous. Two of silver scale 

 Panting above the wave, the fishes mute 

 Gorged, that beneath them shook their quivering fins.' 



This is the fish which changes colour so rapidly and presents 

 so amazing an appearance as it comes in. Montgomery in his 

 Pdican Island, says : 

 170 



