THE GAME FISHES OP THE WOELD 



jerk your bait away from the quick swimmers, or better, toss a 

 handful of bait some feet away to attract them. The slow 

 dignified angel-flsh is left behind, and casting your lure in his 

 direction he takes it in the deliberate fashion. The body, or about 

 one-third of it, including the head, is a vivid yellow ; the mouth 

 is blue, the giU edges and part of the dorsal and ventral fins 

 vermilion, while the central portion is velvet -black — a> most 

 striking arrangement of colours not to be mistaken. For hours 

 I have drifted over the homes of these radiant creatures, watch- 

 ing them through the water glass, and it would be difficult to 

 adequately describe the remarkable colours of these fishes, of 

 these gardens of the sea, that seem to be parrots, so far as 

 plumage goes. 



If in diiEting over these gardens of the reef you chance to 

 have a two-ounce split bamboo and a fly hook you can try a 

 lesser-sized band of angel-fishes, called coral- fishes, or Chaetodons. 

 They are the tourmalines of the sea, gems of many colours, 

 scintillating and blazing tike real gems in the clear waters of 

 the reef, standing out in sharp rehef against the red, yellow, 

 lavender, and brown sea-plumes. These dainty fishes in yellows 

 and blues, splashed and striped, are game, if the very hghtest tackle 

 is used. 



Just as the parrots of the tropical forests seem designed to 

 lend beauty and brilliant colour to the bizarre foliage of these 

 regions, so the parrot-fishes of the tribe of Scarus are the birds of 

 the tropic seas. Lac6p6de says : ' Le feu du diamant, du rubis, 

 de la topaz, de I'^meraude, du saphir, de I'am^thyste, du grenat, 

 scintille sur leurs ^cailles polies, il briUe sur leur surface en gouttes, 

 croissans, en raies, en bandes, en anneaux, en ceintures, en 

 zones, en ondes ; il se mele ^ I'^clat de I'or et de I'argent, qui 

 y resplendit sur des grandes places, les teintes obscures, les aires 

 pales, et pour ainsi d^color^es.' 



Badham recognized their beauty and wrote : 



' While blazing breast of humming-bird and Jo's stifien'd wing 

 Are bright as when they first came forth new-painted in the spring, 

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