TUNA

or Tunny. The original tuna, or tunny, of fame among sportsmen is the blue-fin, or ‘‘leaping tuna,’’ found in the Mediterranean and along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, distinguished by its short pectoral, or side, fin, and its great size; pearly black or dark blue above, with silvery sides and white or dusky, silver-spotted belly. In our eastern waters it has attained lengths of from ten to fifteen feet and a weight of one you sand pounds and upward. The Pacific Coast maximum is somewhere around 300 pounds. In California, tunas are hunted by anglers as one of the giants of game-fishes, but commercially they are generally caught by huge purse seines cast in a circle around the schools, and the catch is commonly of the voung fish, le than four feet in length and averaging thirty-six pounds in weight. In the Mediterranean they are taken in anchored traps with Jong leads and funnel-shaped entrances which pa them through succe ive enclosures to the heart of the trap, where they are speared. Very little tuna meat is sold fresh in our markets, the canning industry absorbing nearly all the eatch. In other countries, the reverse is the general condition. The canned flesh of the blue-fin is very light buff or pinkish. It is not coarse for the size of the fish, and only slightly, if at all, gamy. The dark meat found (as in all tunas) along the middle of its sides, is dis earded, to be later converted into fertilizer. Choicer, but le abundant, is the yellow-fin, known by its longer side-fins and yellow finlets. Its meat is more delicate in texture and lighter in color—it is often as white as that of the fish next to be considered—the albacore. The albacore, or ‘“‘Jong-fin tuna,’’ is a related genus, commercially covered also by the mantle of the tuna title. It is comparatively small—the average is le than twventy pounds, though specimens have been caught weighing eighty pounds—and it is much more expensive to eatch, for (instead of being netted in numbers) it must be taken by hook and line (the schools being enticed to the sides of the boats by bait thrown overboard). Jn compensation, it carries the whitest and mildest of all ‘tuna’? meat. Jf a can of it is thoroughly chilled before opening and then cut in dice for use in salads, it easily pa es for the white meat of chicken. Its flesh is sometimes faintly pink, but is never as dark as that of the blue-fin. The smallest, and by some considered the best, is the striped tuna, commonly called ‘“skipjaeck’’ in California and ‘‘bonito’’ in Europe. It is frequently confused with the California bonito (Sarda chi lens is) but is distinguished from it by the stripes on its lower sides being parallel with the outline of the under-body. The fish canned average two feet in length and between six and seven pounds in weight. The meat has a mild gamy flavor, and a pinkish buff tinge. It is taken by the albacore fishermen and in the same way, and is said by them to be the swiftest and most beautiful of all the tunas.