SEA DRUM AND LAKE DRUM ,. 
*37 
noise which is heard, especially in the breeding season, and is doubtless 
the signal by which the fish call to their mates. This habit of drumming 
is shared by many fishes of this family, but appears to be most highly de¬ 
veloped in the Drum, and in a European species known as the Maigre, 
Scicena aquila. M. Dufosse has investigated, very thoroughly, the physio¬ 
logical causes of these sounds, which appear to depend largely upon the 
action of the air-bladder. 
The northern limit of the species appears to be defined by Cape Cod. 
In 1873, Mr. James H. Blake captured one at Provincetown. Another, 
of twenty-five pounds’ weight, was secured by Vinal Edwards for the Fish 
Commission from Rogers’s pound, Quisset, Mass., July, 1874; another 
large individual, of sixty pounds’ weight, was taken near Noank, Conn., 
July 10, 1874, the third instance of its capture known to the fishermen of 
that vicinity. 
Schoepf, writing about the year 1786, says that they were at that time 
very rare about New York, though he had occasionally seen them at the 
city market, where they met with sale, though their flesh was none of the 
hardest. 
The Drums captured north of Sandy Hook have been, so far as I can 
learn, large adult fish. Prof. Baird found the young fish of this species very 
abundant in August in the small bays along the shores of Beesley’s Point, 
N. J., though few were seen in the rivers. Its southern limit is some¬ 
where in the Gulf of Mexico, but has not been accurately ascertained. 
The young are very dissimilar to the adult fish, though the fishermen in 
Florida and elsewhere recognize the actual relations. In this respect they 
are more discriminating than the ichthyologist Holbrook, who described 
them as distinct species. The adult is known as the “ Black Drum,” the 
young as the “ Striped Drum.” In addition to the marked differences in 
color, the young has a much more shapely body than the adult, much 
higher in proportion to its length. The full-grown fish sometimes weigh 
eighty pounds, though the average is perhaps not more than one-quarter 
as large. They are sluggish swimmers, and are especially adapted to life 
on the bottom, where their long, sensitive barbels aid them in their search 
for buried treasures of food. They feed upon all bottom-dwelling inver¬ 
tebrates. Their teeth are extremely heavy and pavement-like ; their jaws 
are provided with very powerful muscles, by means of which they can crush 
with great ease the shells of the most strongly protected invertebrates. 
