Its breeding habits are not well understood, though it spawns in the bays in early summer, about May or June. The eggs are quite small, about thirty to the inch, are buoyant or floating, and hatch in a few days, usually in two. I have taken many hundreds in Chesapeake Bay in August, but do not remember ever catching one containing roe during that month. It is an excellent food-fish if perfectly fresh, but soon deteriorates, becoming quite soft and losing its characteristic flavor when out of the water a few hours. It is quite an important commercial fish during summer in the eastern markets. Small ones, below a pound in weight, are delicious pan-fish; larger ones should be baked. Its usual weight is two or three pounds, and its maximum ten or twelve; occasionally they are taken still heavier--twenty or twenty-five pounds. Being a surface feeder it is a good game-fish on light tackle, taking bait or an artificial fly with a rush and snap that reminds one of a trout, and for a short time it resists capture bravely. Its first spurt, when hooked, is a grand one, and when checked darts in various directions, making for the weeds if any are near, or toward the bottom, or rushing to the surface leaps out, shaking itself madly to dislodge the hook. It must be handled carefully and gingerly, for it has a tender mouth from which the hook is apt to be torn if too much strain is exerted at first. A very light striped-bass rod may be utilized, but the most suitable is the "Little Giant" rod of seven and one-half feet and eight ounces in ash and lancewood. A good multiplying reel with fifty yards of braided linen line, size G, a three-foot leader, and snelled hooks, Sproat the best. Nos. 1-0 to 3-0 for the tide-runners, and Nos. 1 or 2 for school fish, together with a landing-net, constitute the rest of the tackle. The most satisfactory mode of fishing for weakfish is from a boat anchored near the channel, or tied to a pier or wharf in a tideway. The time for fishing is on the flood tide, from half flood to half ebb, as the tide-runners are going in or out in large schools. As little noise as possible should be made by any necessary movements in the boat, as the fish are easily frightened. Long casts should be made toward the advancing or retreating fish, and the bait kept in motion by being reeled in. No sinker or float is required, as the bait must be kept near the surface. Menhaden or minnows, shedder-crab, lobster, bloodworms, clam, and shrimp are all good natural baits. A small spinner, or a small mother-of-pearl squid, if reeled in rapidly, often proves very taking; also a large, gaudy fly, as the red ibis, soldier, silver doctor, Jock Scott, royal coachman, etc., can be used with good effect when the fish are running strongly and in goodly numbers.