In closing this account it occurs to me to say that the angler who has a genuine love for the finny tribe, and who has never visited the sunny waters of Florida, has in store an experience of joy and delight in the wonderful variety of its fishes. Some idea may be formed of their number from the fact that I have collected nearly three hundred species in the fresh and salt water of that sub-tropical wonderland. And the fishing lasts the year round, and is always good, except when an unusually cold "norther" is blowing. The warm-water species, like the tarpon, lady-fish, and ten-pounder, are more plentiful, and extend their range farther northward in the summer. At that season all of the inlets and passes of both the Atlantic and Gulf coasts abound with them; but the winter visitor will find them in Biscayne Bay, Barnes Sound, Cards Sound, and south-west along the keys to the Dry Tortugas. The brackish water species will be found all winter in the bays and estuaries of either coast. A just idea of the fishing resources of Florida twenty years ago--and it is much the same today--may, perhaps, be gathered from the following excerpts from my "Camping and Cruising in Florida":-- "At flood-tide the channels under the mangroves teem with redfish, groupers, and snappers, while near the beds of coon oysters are schools of sheepshead and drum. In fact, all of the passes and inlets of the Gulf coast are fairly alive with fishes, from the mullet to sharks and sawfish. While lying in his bunk, one can hear all night long the voices of the deep, under and around him. "The hollow, muffled boom of the drumfish seems to be just under one's pillow; schools of sparoid fishes feeding on shell-fish at the bottom, sounds like the snapping of dry twigs on a hot fire; while a hundred tiny hammers in the hands of ocean sprites are tapping on the keel. Then is heard the powerful rush of the tarpon, the blowing of porpoises, and the snapping jaws of the sea-trout among the swarms of mullet, which, leaping from the surface by thousands, awake the watery echoes like showers of silvery fishes falling in fitful gusts and squalls. "Sanibel Island, at the entrance of Caloosa Bay and opposite Punta Rassa, is renowned for its fine fishing. The angler can here fairly revel in piscatorial abandon and cover himself with piscine glory and fish scales. If ichthyc variety is the spice of the angler's life, Sanibel and its sister keys are the Spice Islands. Sharks, rays, and devil-fish, tarpon and jewfish, redfish, snappers and groupers, Spanish mackerel and kingfish, sea-trout, bonito and cavallies, ladyfish and sergeant-fish, sheepshead and drum, a host of smaller fry--spots, grunts, and porgies, and the ever-present and ubiquitous catfish--can here be jerked, and yanked and snaked, and pulled and hauled, until the unfortunate angler will lament that he was ever born--under the last but not least of the zodiacal signs." * * * * *