THE BONITO. 
BONITOES AND TUNNIES, 
Vext with the puny foe, the Tunnies leap, 
Flounce on the stream, and toss the mantling deep. 
Ride o’er the foamy seas, with torture rave, 
Bound into air, and dash the smoking wave. 
Oppian, Translated by Jones . 
HjpHE Bonito, Sarda mediterranean is one of those fishes which appea r to 
live chiefly in the open ocean, wandering hither and thither in 
large schools, preying upon other pelagic fishes, and approaching land 
only when attracted by abundance of acceptable food. Several of the 
smaller species of the group of Tunnies, to which it belongs, are known 
to sailors by the same name. The common “Bonito” of England, Orcynus 
pelamys , two or three specimens of which have been detected in our waters 
since 1876, is what is here called the “ Striped Bonito,” but the fish 
which most frequently and in greatest numbers approaches our shores is 
the one which is named at the head of this section. Almost nothing is 
known of its habits, and it is even impossible to define its geographical 
range with any degree of certainty, its distribution being very unlike that 
of any other fish with which we are acquainted. It maybe said, however 
that it is found only in the Atlantic basin. On our coast it occurs in 
summer between Cape May and Cape Sable, though rarely north of Cape 
Ann ; occasionally off Cape Hatteras and the mouth of the Chesapeake 
and in the Gulf of Mexico. Specimens have been taken about the Can¬ 
aries and Madeira, at the Cape of Good Hope and in the Mediterranean. 
It has not been observed on the coast of Europe north of Gibraltar, nor 
at the Bermudas. 
