The Bass and their Relatives 995 
banded, spotted, or streaked. In deeper water bright-red spe- 
cies are found. One of these, Lutianus aya, the red snapper or 
pargo guachinango of the Gulf of Mexico, is, economically 
speaking, the most important of all these fishes in the United 
States. It is a large, rather coarse fish, bright red in color, 
and it is taken on long lines on rocky reefs chiefly about Pen- 
sacola and Tampa in Florida, although similar fisheries exist 
on the shores of Yucatan and Brazil. 
A related species is the Lutianus analts, the mutton snapper 
or pargo criollo of the West Indies. This is one of the staple 
Fic. 270.—Lutianus apodus (Walbaum), Schoolmaster or Caji. Family Lutianide. 
fishes of the Havana market, always in demand for banquets 
and festivals, because its flesh is never unwholesome. The 
mangrove snapper, or gray-snapper, Lutianus griseus, called 
in Cuba, Caballerote, is the commonest species on our coasts. 
The common name arises from the fact that the young hide 
in the mangrove bushes of Florida and Cuba, whence they sally 
out in pursuit of sardines and other small fishes. It is a very 
wary fish, to be sought with care, hence the name “lawyer,”’ 
sometimes heard in Florida. The cubero (Lutianus cyanop- 
terus) is a very large snapper, often rejected as unwholesome, 
being said to cause the disease known as ciguatera. Certain 
snappers in Polynesia have a similar reputation. The large red 
mumea, Lutianus bohar, is regarded as always poisonous in 
Samoa—the most dangerous fish of the islands. L. letoglossus is 
