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NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



The Big Game Fishes of the United States. By Chas. Frederick 

 Holder. New York : The Macniillan Company. 



This book is addressed to the angler, but it is also an addition 

 to the naturalist's library. To capture with rod and line piscine 

 monsters weighing from 200 to 400 lb. is a new adventure for 

 Mr. Piscator, and many members of the gentle craft will register 

 a resolve to visit the Floridan and other American oceanic fishing 

 grounds. But the zoologist will not read these pages in vain ; 

 many facts are recorded which only an angler would collect and a 

 naturalist observe. Mr. Holder has written lives of both Charles 

 Darwin and Louis Agassiz, and is therefore considerably more 

 than the ardent sportsman. 



The Black Sea-Bass (Stereolepis gigas) frequents the sub- 

 marine forests of the Californian coasts. " The trees are repre- 

 sented by the so-called kelp, the Macrocystis, which attains a 

 length of several hundred feet, rising upward in broad deep green 

 leaves of gigantic size, which swing in the current, undulating 

 like living things, forming a maze or forest, which, while easily 

 seen, is a closed region even to the diver, owing to the convolu- 

 tions of the plants." A specimen of this fish, weighing 419 lb., 

 has been taken with rod and line. The Bluefish (Pomatomus 

 salatrix) is another so-called game-fish, affording much sport to 

 the angler. These fish are most voracious ; the author has seen 

 them charge a school of small Mackerel, " leaving the water filled 

 with silvery fragments," and when " crazed by the excitement of 

 the chase, amused themselves by biting the fleeing victims for 

 the mere wanton pleasure of killing. " Prof. Baird estimates that 

 a thousand millions of Bluefish may be found off the American 

 coast in summer, and if each one eats ten small fish per day, then 

 ten thousand millions of small fry must be consumed daily by 

 these fishes alone. Another destructive fish is the Drum (Po- 

 gonias cromis), visiting the Oyster-beds, and crushing the succu- 

 lent bivalves like paper in its powerful jaws. These fish are 

 often found in vast schools, each fish weighing from forty to 



