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AMERICAN FISHES . 
herring, or are used for manure. In the Chesapeake region they are not 
highly esteemed, although great quantities are sold by hawkers, especially 
in the cities, where people are not well informed, under the name of 
“ Shad.” At the beginning of the season hundreds of men may be seen 
going about the city of Washington with strings of these fish, which they 
cry for Shad, and which with great insolence they press upon such would- 
be purchasers as are inclined to question their genuineness. In the pound- 
nets of the Chesapeake in the beginning of the season they are caught in 
immense numbers, and are shipped to the markets with the true Shad until 
their price falls below three cents apiece, after which they are sold with 
the Herring, one counting as two Herrings. 
In our waters the most important member of this family is the Tarpum, 
Megalops thrissoides, an immense herring-like fish, which occurs in the 
Western Atlantic and in the Gulf of Mexico, ranging north to Gape Cod 
and south at least to Northern Brazil. It is somewhat abundant in the 
West Indies, and stragglers have been taken as far to the eastward as the 
Bermudas. This species attains the length of five or six feet, and is 
covered with enormous circular scales of one inch to two inches and a 
half in diameter, the exposed portions of which are covered with a silvery 
epidermis. The fish, when alive, presents a very brilliant metallic ap¬ 
pearance, and the scales are much prized by curiosity hunters and for 
fancy work in the Florida curiosity shops. They are a staple article of 
trade, selling for from ten to twenty-five cents each, the price paid to the 
fishermen being about fifty cents per dozen. 
The sailors’ name for this fish, by which same name it is also known at 
Key West, Bermuda, Brunswick, Georgia and elsewhere, is “ Tarpum ” or 
“ Tarpon.” In Georgia and Florida it is commonly called the “Jew-fish,” 
