FISHES AND FISHING. 
215 
and artless their tune ; yet, mellowed and softened 
by distance, now swelling in chorus, now feeble and 
faint, it has considerable sweetness, as the human 
voice always has under such circumstances. Yonder 
we see them, forming two lines in the water, ten or a 
dozen men in each row, hauling upon the two ropes ; 
the outmost up to the neck in the sea, and the in- 
most on the beach ; all naked, regardless of the burn- 
ing sun that now pours down his beams upon their 
woolly heads and glossy backs. It is a slow opera- 
tion ; and as they all throw their weight upon the 
line together, they sway backward and forward in 
time with the wild air whose notes they are singing. 
In an hour or two the fishes that the seine has in- 
closed are dragged on shore, and lie gasping and flut- 
tering on the wet sand. Let us see what they have 
taken. Here is the usual predominance of Grunts 
and Snappers, Hamlets and Hinds ; — two pretty 
Chgetodons, C. cajpistratus, with its eye-like spot on 
the tail, and C. striatus, with its black bands; two 
kinds of Doctor-fish, so called from the curious glassy . 
lancets that they carry in a sheath on each side of 
the tail, Acanthurus chirurgus, and A. cceruleus ; 
and a Parrot-fish (^Scarus c(Bruleus\ remarkable for 
its abrupt, almost vertical, profile, white eye, and 
brilliant azure hue ; I observe that the two divisions 
of the upper jaw, in this fish, are capable, during life, 
of separate motion, up and down ; a circumstance, I 
think, not before noticed. Here is a MuT(Ena, look- 
ing as if it had been varnished ; another lengthened 
fish, of curious form, and remarkable style of colour- 
ing, rust-red with longitudinal white lines, and nu- 
