s 4 
AMERICAN FISHES. 
Sheepshead and the Scuppaug or Porgy. There are several others inhabit¬ 
ing our southern coast, of which the Sailor’s Choice, Lagodon rhomboides, 
and the Bream, or Bastard Snapper, Spcirus aculeatus , are the best known, 
but these are of little importance to either fisherman or economist. On 
the Pacific side are others, which will doubtless be better known in the 
future than they are at the present time. 
The Sheepshead, Archosargusprobatocephalus , is one of the choicest fishes - 
of our waters. It derives its name from the resemblance of its profile and 
teeth to those of a sheep, and also from its browsing habits. Unlike most 
of those fishes which are widely distributed along our seaboard, it has only 
one name, and by this it is known from Cape Cod to the Mexican bor¬ 
der. The negroes of the South, however, frequently drop the sibilant 
sound from the middle of the word and call it “ Sheephead.” 
Several other species are called by the same name, but there is little 
danger of confusion except in the case of the so-called “Sheepshead” of 
the Great Lakes, which is similar to the well-known “ Drum this fish is 
occasionally sold to the unwary on the recommendation of its good name. 
This fish has never been known to pass to the north of the sandy arm of 
Cape Cod, and its northern range is at present somewhat more limited than 
it was eighty years ago. In the records of Wareham, Massachusetts, they 
are mentioned as having been somewhat abundant in 1803, and in Narra- 
gansett Bay there is a tradition that they began to disappear in 1793, when 
the Scuppaug commenced to increase in abundance. In 1871, E. E. Taylor, 
of Newport, testified before the U. S. Commissioner of Fisheries, that his 
father caught Sheepshead in abundance forty-five or fifty years previous. 
In 1870 and 1871 the species was coming into notice in this region, though 
neither at that time nor since has it become common. On the south 
shore of Long Island it is quite abundant, and in New York harbor and 
its various approaches, at times, may be taken in considerable numbers. 
On the coast of New Jersey it is also abundant, and between Cape May 
and Montauk Point the species is said to attain its greatest perfection as a 
food-fish. Lugger states that it frequents the oyster localities of all parts 
of Chesapeake Bay, but is now more common among the southeastern 
counties of Virginia, where it comes in considerable numbers to feed upon 
the animals which live on the oyster bars. It is found about wrecks of old 
vessels, on which barnacles and mollusks live. About Beaufort, N. C., it 
is also abundant, and also along the entire coast of the South Atlantic and 
