All things considered, it is one of the best game-fishes of Florida. It is a surface feeder and takes the artificial fly eagerly, as well as natural bait, or the artificial squid and trolling-spoon. With light tackle it affords good sport, being a strong and determined fighter. It is a great favorite with all anglers who are acquainted with its merits. When of the usual weight of from two to four pounds, black-bass tackle is very suitable and serviceable in rod, reel, line, hooks, or flies, though a rather heavy braided linen line is better adapted for salt water than a silk one. To be more explicit, an eight-ounce rod, multiplying reel, line size F, Sproat hooks Nos. 2-0 to 3-0 on gut or gimp snells, will be found to be just about right for bait-fishing. For fly-fishing, a rod of eight ounces, click reel, braided linen line, size E, leader of three or four feet, single gut, and black-bass flies such as silver-doctor, red ibis, Abbey, soldier, oriole, coachman, etc., on hooks Nos. 1 to 2, will be found to answer in skilful hands. A heavier rod may be used when the fish run larger, and also flies on hooks a size or two larger. Very small phantom minnows, spoons, or squids may be often used with success when the fish are running in schools in the spring. Fishing, either with fly or bait, can be practised with good results at flood tide from the end of long piers that extend to deep water, or at the points of inlets during the running season. The piers at Port Tampa and St. Petersburg, on Tampa Bay, also at Mullet Key and Egmont Key, or Pass-a-Grille, in the same vicinity, are famed fishing resorts in March and April. I prefer to fish from a boat moored to the pier, rather than from the pier itself, as the fish are not so likely to see one, and they are more conveniently landed. During the winter the best fishing will be found in the bays and bayous, or in the streams, in the vicinity of sand-shoals or mud-flats, at almost any stage of the tide, which usually rises but a foot or two in the bays of the west coast. At the inlets and passes, at the first of the flood and last of the ebb tide, the fishing is also good during the winter months. The spotted weakfish takes its prey at the surface with a snap of its jaws that is quite audible, especially at night when one's yacht is at anchor. It takes the angler's fly or bait in the same way. It will remind him forcibly of the bite of a large brook-trout, and its manner of resistance when hooked is very much the same as with that fish--one reason for the name sea-trout. The fishing is especially good in Tampa and Sarasota bays, and the upper portion of Charlotte Harbor, on the west coast; and on the east coast at the mouths of streams entering Halifax River. Mosquito Lagoon, or Indian River. THE DEEP-SEA WEAKFISH (_Cynoscion thalassinus_)