338 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



" It is generally quite late when the last fish are out, ami, after washing down the deck and 

 hold, the crew lose no time in going to their bunks for the night." 



MENHADEN FISHING ON A LONG ISLAND STEAMER.* 



"Loitering in comfortable indecision, I was fortunate enough to get an invitation from Capt. 

 'Jed' Hawkins to take a fishing cruise in his 'bunker' steamer. The start was to be made at 

 earliest dawn an ungracious hour and I was glad to leave the hotel in the evening and avail 

 myself of a sofa in the captain's snug stateroom behind the pilot-house, so as to avoid the annoyance 

 of getting up in the middle of the night. It was Sunday, and the little wharf was utterly deserted 

 as I picked my way among the rubbish and piles of merchandise down to the steamer. Standing 

 on the high deck, a picture of serene beauty spread before me. The air was perfectly still, the moon 

 just fairly risen, and no sound was to be heard save the ticking of that mighty time piece, the tide, 

 as its wavelets swung gently back and forth under the weedy piers or divided against the sharp 

 prows of the smacks. It was light enough to show the spars and ropes of every craft, and all lay 

 as motionless as though fixed in rock rather than floating in liquid, save the tremulous blue pennons 

 on the topmasts. Then I turned in ; and when I emerged, after an hour's pounding on my door 

 (as it seemed) by the chnggety-chugging engines, we were far down Gardiner's Bay. 



"Last night the unruffled water was like bronze. Now, under the soft silvery haze of the morn- 

 ing, the dancing surface became frosted silver, opaque and white, save where the early sunbeams, 

 striking through the mist, were reflected from the crests of the ripples in glancing ribbons of light. 

 Shelter Island was an indistinguishable mass far astern ; Long Reach light had ceased to twinkle; 

 Orient Point was hidden in haze; Plum Island, where eagles used to make their metropolis, and 

 many fish-hawks now live, nesting on the ground with the gulls, was only a low bank of blue; 

 Gull Islands could not be seen at all ; and I only knew that Little Gull, with its copper-bolted wall, 

 was there from the dot in the horizon made by its lonely light-house, and an occasional gleam, 

 imagined to be the surf, breaking on the reefs at the Race. All this was northward. Southward 

 the wooded bluffs of Gardiner's Island, with its natural breakwater and light-house, like a long 

 arm reaching out between the outer and the inner waters, limiting the view. But this was soon left 

 behind, and as the deep indentation of Napeague came into view the steamer's head was turned south- 

 eastward, toward Moutauk, which, in the growing light, now stood out plain in every bleak feature 

 of sandy dune and treeless moor. Now a very sharp lookout must be kept for fish; and after the 

 substantial breakfast in the forecastle, I took my pipe and a place in the shrouds. Even then I 

 could not look across Montauk, but could easily see two great ponds of fresh water, which nearly 

 served to make an island of the point. One of them, Fort Pond, was once a scene of sanguinary 

 warfare between the Moutauks and Narragansetts, the latter being beaten only by help from the 

 Shelter Island Indians, who drove the invaders to their canoes. 



"Off Oulloden Point the lookout excitedly announced, 'Fish off the port bow.' The captain 

 seized his glass and scanned the water. So did I. 'There's a big bunch,' he shouts. 'Watch 

 'em flirt their tails. Good color. See how red the water is.' 



" 'Oh, yes; to be sure,' I cry. ' By Jove, that's a good color.' 



" My vacant face must have belied my words, but he didn't notice it. He was shouting, ' Lower 

 away the boats ; stand by to ship the nets; ' furiously ringing signals to the engineer; giving hasty 

 orders to the wheelsman ; ensconcing himself in a pair of oil-skin trousers, so capacious I half 

 expected he would disappear altogether ; and so, amid the roar of escaping steam, the creaking of 



* l-'rom an article entitled "Around the Peconics," by Ernest Ingersoll, ill Harper's New Monthly Magazine for 

 October 1, 1878, pp. 719-723, 



