Leather Jacket (Monacanthus hispidus)
These leather jackets are found in most tropical seas, and with their large sheeplike teeth they seize any bait left stationary at the bottom. They are without true scales, the body being covered with roughnesses instead. They are thin, tough fish, and of no use for food.
Trigger Fish (Balistes carolinensis) and Angel Fish (Angelichthys isabelita)
The trigger fish, like the last species figured, also goes by the name of “leather jacket,” and is, as a glance at its general outline will show, a similar type of fish. The trigger fish derives the name from the curious arrangement of its dorsal fin, which lies flat in a socket or slot. It has, like the last, no true scales, but excrescences, which can be plainly seen in the photograph. It is not often taken on a hook.
The little angel fish is one of the most gaudy inhabitants of those seas, where the usual preponderance of gaily coloured fish is hardly, perhaps, so marked as in some other warm waters. It is found in shoals round wrecks and sunken piles. Blue and yellow, with reddish and brown and olive markings and spots, some varieties of the “angel” are beautiful if somewhat gorgeous fish. If well angled for they can be taken in quantities. These are among the many accidental arrivals in the tarpon fisher’s boat, but I have thought it best to give as many photographs of local fish as possible, so that the visitor with a liking for natural history may not be at a loss to identify an occasional strange fish, about which he wants to write to the proper authorities for further information.
