-CHAPTER XXXVII 1 



IRISHES OF THE BAHAMAS, BERMUDAS, 

 JAMAICA, ETC. 



' I know a magic circle in the Sea, 

 Etched on the blue pale gray coral sand ; 

 A mountain sank there once, and patiently 

 Its widening eddies stiffened into land, 

 With lazy surges flapping on the strand.' 



Rhyme of Mary Atoll. 



WHILE the sea fislies of England do not include the tarpon 

 and others, England really owns what may be accounted 

 ^among the finest fishing grounds. England has the tarpon 

 at British Guiana, the tuna at Malta in the Mediterranean, and 

 the British flag floats over some of the best of the world's angling 

 :grounds. This is very evident off the American coast. Mr. 

 Tioss, a Canadian, holds the tuna record at Nova Scotia, the best 

 ground for large tuna — ^between six hundred and one thousand 

 pounds ; and from Bermuda to Nassau and at the Barbados, 

 .including Jamaica, the English have a notable and splendid fish- 

 ing ground, including practically all of the great Florida fishes 

 about which so much is written, and which afford so much genuine 

 -sport. 



This is so nearly true that in writing of the game fishes of all 

 these regions, I could dispose of them by merely stating in a 

 general way that the Florida fishes are practically duplicated in 

 the Bahamas and Bermudas. Here are over seventy-five species 

 of fishes available to rod, fine or net, many valuable as game, and 

 aU as beautiful as the coral reefs about which they live. 



The base of the Bermudas is a sunken atoll, shaped like an 

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