THE NATIONAL* GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photograph by L,. L,. Mowbray 



THE WHITE ARMED ANEMONE 



Sea-anemones, closely resembling beautiful and many-hued chrysanthemums, are found 

 among the rocks in quiet waters along the Gulf shores. This low form of animal life feeds 

 by arresting with its outspread petal-like tentacles small particles of food floating by, which 

 it then draws toward the central mouth. From a muscular base the anemone can move very 

 slowly from place to place, one observation in the New York Aquarium showing a travel of 

 forty-eight inches in the course of twenty-four hours. They have no food value for man, 

 but are sometimes eaten by fish. 



A snapper is an all-around, up-to-date 

 fish, an evolutionary product of the 

 keenest of all competition in the fish 

 world, that at the tropical shore-line. 



There is nothing peculiar or freakish 

 about the snapper. Me is just thoroughly 

 successful and modern, active, adaptable, 

 and clever — trim-formed, spiny-finned, 

 keen -eyed, smooth-scaled, and strong- 

 toothed. 



Almost anywhere one goes one can see 

 little schools of the Gray Snapper through 

 the clear tropical water, skirting the 



shore or the edge of the mangroves, on 

 the lookout for small fry to satisfy their 

 appetites, and at the same time with a 

 weather eye out for possible danger. It 

 would seem a simple matter to catch one 

 on hook and line, but no fish is warier 

 about being thus ensnared. 



Several species of snappers are almost 

 equally abundant, the Muttonfish and the 

 Red Snapper, which is taken in com- 

 paratively deep water, being perhaps the 

 most important commercially. 



The excellence of the Red Snapper is 



