was finally saved, a six-pound sheepshead.

Pecetti, who had waited on us attentively, baiting our hooks and
taking off our fish (a service of some danger to a tyro, as the
sheepshead is armed with sharp spines), had a hook baited with
mullet away astern of the boat. This line was now straightened out
by something heavy, which he pulled in, hand over hand, and lifted on
board a handsome fish, near two feet long, with darkly mottled sides
and shaped like a cod-fish. "That's a nice grouper," said he--"ten
pound, I think." This is a percoid, _Serranus nigritus_ of Holbrook,
and one of the very best table-fishes of these waters.

We took six or eight more sheepshead, and the captain caught a
handsome, active fish of about four pounds weight, resembling the
squetegue or weakfish of New York, but having dark spots on the back,
like the lake-trout of the Adirondacks. This is the salt-water
trout, so called, though it is not a salmonine: it is _Otolithus
Caroliniensis_, the weakfish being _Otolithus regalis_.

Next I hooked a strong fish which seemed disposed to run under the
mangrove roots. "That's a big grouper," cried Pecetti. "Keep him away
from the roots, or you will lose him."

I did my best, but he was too strong: the rod bent into a hoop with
the strain, but I had to let him run, and he took to his hold under
the bank, from whence I was not able to dislodge him, and had to break
my line, losing hooks and snood. While this was going on, Herbert, who
had put on a mullet bait and let it float down the current, hooked and
secured after five minutes' play a channel bass or redfish of about
seven pounds. This is a fish peculiar to the Southern waters, good