412 MITCHILL ON THE FISHE8 OF NEW-YORK. 



seven or eight appendices. The swimming vessel is very large, and 

 distended with air. Toward the thorax it has two vermicular processes., 

 The gall bladder is several inches long, and very green. The teeth, in 

 the throat are not so hard, distinct, and pavement-like, as in the black 

 drum. Processes of the vesica natatoria are received into holes or 

 depressions on both sides of the back-bone, among the ribs, internally ; 

 and this also occurs in the other species. On the 15th of October I 

 measured a fine individual that was three feet and six inches long. It 

 affords excellent eating. 



4. Red Drum. (Scicuna gigas.) With a ruddy or reddish com- 

 plexion, and frequently weighing sixty pounds, or upward. 



This is commonly considered a distinct species from the black drum; 

 but, after much examination, I am not sure he is any thing more than a 

 variety. 



The difference is so difficult to assign, that I have heard men who 

 pretended to be judges deliver opposite opinions on the very same 

 parcel of fishes ; one declaring them to be black drum ; another affirm- 

 ing them to be red drum ; and another again, saying that some were 

 black, and others red. 



With such doubts among the adepts, and such a coincidence of natu- 

 ral marks in all the individuals I have examined, there is every reason to 

 conclude the complexion is merely the effect of age, or sex, or of some 

 other cause operating upon the colours of fish. The rays of the fins, 

 in a very large red drum taken alive from the water, were nearly as* 

 already enumerated for the black drum. 



