THE BLUEFISH AND STEIPED BASS 



definite r61e ; but it is to-day the best sea fish on the American 

 coast of North America, and when broiled half an hour from the 

 sea, a gift from the gods. 



The striped-bass (Boccus lineatus) ranges from Labrador to 

 the delta of the Mississippi, and on the Pacific coast from the 

 Oregon Une indefinitely north and south, though rarely to Santa 

 Catahna, a number of specimens having been taken in Alanaitos 

 Bay, Los Angeles County. It ascends the rivers to spawn, and 

 is found in the Potomac as far as Little FaUs, where I have 

 fished for it ; is taken up the Hudson beyond Albany and very 

 common at FishkUl, where I have seen fishes of the largest size 

 taken through the ice in February. In the Connecticut, it reaches 

 Hartford, and anglers on the St. Lawrence have taken specimens 

 as far up as Quebec ; doubtless, it goes far beyond. Strange to 

 say, it is not a migratory fish, being found at any time, winter or 

 summer, in the regions of its choice. This, and the fact that it 

 bites readily, and is easily taken in nets through the ice and in 

 other ways, and at any time, explains its'disappearanee in many 

 regions, where it was once a prominent figure and a dominant 

 note. 



Like many fishes of wide range, the striped-bass passes under 

 many pseudonyms. Striped-bass is the name north of the 

 Delaware, but south of that point it is known as the rock-fish. 

 Under any name, it is equally a gallant and hard fighter, and a 

 most beautiful fish never to be mistaken or confused with anything 

 else. The general tone is olivaceous ; the back may have a 

 bluish tint, the sides newly minted silver grading into the purest 

 colonial, or flake white, on the slightly pendulous belly. Along 

 the sides from head to tail, are six or eight rows of closely con- 

 nected spots which form stripes, and lower down three smaller 

 ones, so that the effect on the eye is of a splendid, indeed, dazzling 

 silver fish with pronounced stripes. Its head is large, even 

 ponderous ; its mouth capacious, that of an omnivorous feeder y 

 the eye large and well-proportioned. 



This bass spawns in the spring — ^May, or sometimes in April— 



i6 241 



