The sea-birds were coming down from the north, long, undulating lines of shags passed north and south, clouds of gulls followed the bait catchers, and the west at night became set in autumnal splendours and ineffable tints of gold and red. The delightful fall fishing season, September, was on, with two more fishing months to follow. A rain had cleaned the sleeping air; the blue haze on the distant mountains softened the rugged outlines; the chaparral and trees took on deeper tints of green, all telling of the waning summer and the coming of the island winter, the season of flowers.

One morning when great bands of vermilion shot upward from the horizon, cutting deep into the sky, Don Antonio rowed his patron out from the vale of Avalon. The channel was calm, and the rhythm of the tide gave a gentle undulation to the kelp leaves that lay glistening in the rising sun. The tide was low, and all along shore the black beard of kelp brought out the rocks in strong relief. On the points eagles stood preening their feathers for the day; a school of sealions was making for the rookery after a circuit of the north shore, and as the boat rounded the point and entered the light green water a fair and smooth sea stretched away. Don Antonio dropped the anchor near the beach, half a mile above the rookery, in sight of the sea-lions that lay basking on the black rocks, arranged his rope to cast off at a moment's notice, placed his oars in position, baited his hook with three or four pounds of albacore, and while the angler made the

cast began the chumming which is supposed to aid and abet the capture of fish in all climes.

The equipment of this black-sea-bass angler may be of interest. His rod and reel were designed especially for leaping tuna and black sea-bass; the silent reel was equipped with heavy, patent, anti-overrunning brake and leather thumb-brake, and held perhaps six hundred feet of twenty-one-thread linen line. The rod was a split bamboo, seven feet in length, with long butt and single joint mounted with agate guides. A six- or seven-foot bronze wire leader was attached to the line, the hook being the Van Vleck pattern-a singularshaped silvered hook in high favour among tarpon experts.

A light wind sprang up and swung the boat to the east, gently rippling the water. As the moments slipped away the angler leaned back in his chair, with rod across his knees, the line overhauled and between his fingers, as the big reel had no click, and glanced over the San Clemente Channel at the long, low island that loomed up in the blue haze. It was not a day of waiting. Presently there came an ill-defined tightening of the line; it might have been a drifting kelp leaf, possibly the shifting current; then it slackened, and the angler took his rod in hand, his right clasping the butt, the left caressing the cork grip above the reel, as he well knew that the largest of game fishes in the bass tribe are the most delicate biters. There was no mistake here; Don Antonio dropped his cigarette, threw off the

turn of the anchor rope, and held the buoy in his hand. The line was slipping through the smooth agate guides, and Don Antonio, dropping into Catalina Spanish in his excitement, whispered hoarsely, “Ahora, ahora!" But not yet; the bass might have the heavy bait merely between its lips, to be jerked out by a too hasty strike. Another foot, until ten or twelve had gone, then the rod rose in a strong, well-directed strike, and the game was on. Stse-stse-ceese-ceese! went the line, hissing through the water, the silent reel unburdening itself to the measure. Over went the buoy, around whirled the boat, and bravely they were away. Stern first it surged, with Don Antonio holding back gently at the oars.

The rod pounded the air with terrific jerks and the xepert handling it was almost lifted from his seat by the impetuosity of the rush. Directly out to sea the fish went, headed for deep water, and as at this particular point there was no kelp, the combat was to be on its merits. In a few seconds the boat was rushing stern first into the swell beyond the lee of the island, a big wave beneath the combing stern. Ten, twenty, thirty minutes slipped away, and the boat was well offshore where the wind and sea were rising, and the angler meantime had accomplished little but hold the rod, vainly pumping with seven hundred feet of line out, the fish ever boring down. After a desperate effort it was turned, when it rushed inshore, and at the end of an hour was again towing them seaward. Sometimes a few feet of line would be gained and as many lost, the fish