TIIE BtACK-FIS It. 
181 
a never-failing theme of entertainment to those who are en- 
gaged in this sort of adventure. Though the hand line is 
generally used, the rod is sometimes employed to great ad- 
vantage. The black-fish is remarkable for retaining life a 
long time after he is taken out of water. He sometimes 
swims over even ground, and is caught in seines.” 
An observant New-York amateur, who delights in black- 
fish angling, gives us the following: 
“ The black-fish, or, as he is called in the eastern states, 
the tautog, is a very fine fish for the table, well known to all 
epicures, mid affords fine amusement to the angler. lie is 
taken on reefs or around detached rocks, where the food in 
which he delights is found. The usual baits employed in 
taking black-fish are the hard and soft shelled clam, the rock 
crab and soldier crab or fiddler, shrimp and shedder lobster 
or crab : these two last are decidedly the best that can be 
used, though in many situations the shrimp and the two small 
kinds of crab above named are sometimes to be preferred. 
As a general bait for these fish, the shedder lobster is my 
favorite, nud I have long been a successful angler for these 
fish. There is a very great difference observable in the 
black-fish, even those feeding together at the same rock. 
Those taken close to the rock, especially if it has shelving 
sides, are shorter, much darker colored, and thicker than 
those which are found playing in the edge of the tide as 
it sweeps past the rock — these are the long fish, with larger 
heads than the others, and of much lighter color, especially 
about the head and snout, the latter frequently being nearly 
white, whence they are called white-noses and tide-runners. 
They seem to delight in the eddies at the very edge of the 
swift water, where they watch for the shrimp, or small crabs, 
which are home along by the tide. By casting the line a 
little above the rock, uud letting the buit float with the cur- 
rent past it, holding the rod with an even and ready hand, 
