All catfish are active at night, which might be thought to account for their popular name, only that they are on the feed all day as well. It is nevertheless a pretty sight on hot nights when the sea is highly phosphorescent to throw morsels of fish or meat into the water, and watch the balls of fire darting in all directions as the catfish and others dash to their repast.
In the picture will be seen a baby hammerhead shark (Sphyrna zygæna), a rather interesting personality, for it had not long been born when photographed, and had not in fact developed the singular “hammer” of a later stage, its eyes being still flush with the sides of the head, and its only distinction from the more typical sharks lying in the extraordinarily prolonged snout. I give a photograph of an adult hammerhead later on.
The Sheepshead (Archosargus probatocephalus)
I mentioned the sea-bream in writing of catfish, and one of the commonest of the group on that coast is the sheepshead, so-called, I imagine, from the solid, sheeplike teeth that can even crunch the mangrove oysters, in the neighbourhood of which these fish are so fond of foregathering. These growths of oysters on the red mangrove always attract the notice of visitors unused to the spectacle. The best bait for these bream is a fiddler crab, a crustacean found in every lagoon thereabouts, and owing its name to a singular habit of waving its large claw (only the male has this disproportionate limb) exactly as if it were drawing a bow across a fiddle. As the sea-bream are fond of company, playing one is generally the prelude to a good bag of them. They bear little resemblance to their namesakes of rivers and ponds, for they are not so slimy or sluggish, but on the contrary more spiny, and have the dark band markings and game fighting manner of perch. They feed not far from the bottom, and must be struck sharply the moment they bite, and for their size they play very well. They can be taken in immense quantities.
SHEEPSHEAD IN APPEARANCE SOMEWHAT LIKE ENGLISH PERCH, THEIR FRONT TEETH RESEMBLE THOSE OF A CHILD.