120 
AMERICAN FISHES. 
were salted during the season of 1871 by the fishermen, in his vicinity. 
The fish bring about $3 per hundred at wholesale, and $5 at retail, this 
being equal to the average for the last ten years. 
Silas Stearns writes : 
“ The Spotted Trout is abundant from Key West to Mexico. In the 
Pensacola region it is present all the year, although most abundant in 
summer. It prefers to remain in shoal waters on grassy bottom, where it 
finds small fish and shrimps in abundance for food. It breeds in inside 
waters in July and August. Quantities of the fry are seen in August and 
September. They do not often form in schools in the bays, but in some 
places are so plentiful that it is not unusual to catch five or eight barrels 
at one drag of a seine. One man fishing with hook and line sometimes 
catches one hundred in less than a day. The Trout is an excellent food- 
fish, and of considerable importance to the fish trade. The demand for it 
would be much greater if it was not so hard to preserve in this climate.” 
S. C. Clarke writes that it is more of a game fish than the Squeteague, 
active, vigorous and voracious, and capturable with similar fishing gear. 
He recommends a bamboo rod of eight or nine feet, a multiplying reel 
with drag, and 100 to 150 yards of fifteen thread flax line, with hook of 
the Cuttyhunk pattern, and ounce sinkers of hollow lead. 
The Silver Squeteague, Cynoscion notlium , called at Charleston the “ Bas¬ 
tard Trout,” while resembling in shape the two species already described, 
is easily distinguished from them, being of a uniform silvery hue, the back 
being slightly darker than the rest of the body. 
One or two individuals have been taken in Chesapeake Bay, but it has 
rarely been observed north of South Carolina, whence Holbrook obtained 
the specimens from which the original description was made. I have ob¬ 
tained one or two individuals from the mouth of the St. John’s River, 
where they are not distinguished by the fishermen from the ‘ ‘ Shad Trout, ’ ’ or 
Northern Squeteague. In the Gulf of Mexico, according to Stearns, it is 
common in company with the Spotted Squeteague, and, as far as has been 
observed, its habits are similar. It is, however, according to Jordan, less 
abundant, and is not to be found at all seasons. It is most abundant in 
September and October, but no spawning fish or young have been seen. 
The “ White Trout,” as it is called in Pensacola, is caught with hook and 
line in company with the Spotted Trout. 
On our Pacific coast there are several species of Cynoscion. The most 
