DRUM, or ( so called from the drumming noise). Any of several fishes of the family Seiamida.. most of the species of which make a noise under water variously called croak ing, drumming, snoring. grunting. etc., but which most resembles the roll of a muffled or distant drum. This noise is commonly thought to be pro duced by the transfer of air to different compart ments of the air-Madder. The fishermen fre quently attribute it to the rubbing together of the broad pharyngeal teeth, which are arranged like a cobblestone pavement, and are often pre served as a seashore curiosity. These remarks more particularly apply to the salt-water drum of the Atlantic coast of the rnited States (Pogo tins ehromis), which has been known to exceed UM pounds in weight, but ordinarily is not half that weight. It is a heavily built fish, with poor flesh, large scales arranged in diagonal rows, and a large number of short harbels hanging from the lower jaw. It frequents hays and shallow coastal waters, in search of the mollusks upon which it mainly feeds. and may often be heard at night 'drumming' steadily for a long time be neath an anchored boat. It is a great pest to the
oyster-planters about New York, destroying an nually a vast amount of cultivated oysters, the fish crushing into fragments hundreds more than it cats. (Consult, on this point, Ingersoll, 'The ( lyster in I toted A.•ialts Tenth ('ca.sas port, \\ ashington. Issl.) This species ranges on the east coast south to Uruguay. The south ern Nariety Vuyo,iiu curbiam 1 known by .1:razilians as 'curbing,' meaning 'croaker.' The iresh-water or riser drum (Ali/U/0110/as !VIM it known a- thund•rptimper, sheeps and croaker, is a kindred I•1 minion in the lakes and streams of the :\lississippi In the North it is not much Valued, but in the south it holds a high as a food fish, ()flier species of druni are the red drum ;`;(4(rnops it. bitsts) of the south Atlantic and golf States, and the black drums of the genus seiama, mostly of the i thl orld. of the species afford good short with the line.