No. 63.] 195 



good condition and fine eating. In April and May, they are still 

 better in New-York, and those taken in Connecticut river are esteemed 

 the best. 



Ttie shad is the Clupea alosa of scientific writers. (See Mitchell's 

 New-York Fishes.) On Staten-Island the seine or draw-net is some- 

 times employed in taking shad, but the fike or stationary hoop net is 

 principally used to capture them. Along the southern and eastern 

 shore of the island, every person who has a farm fronting on the wa- 

 ter where the shad run, has his fike or fikes prepared in (hie season, 

 and set at a proper distance from the shore. The fike is lifted at eve- 

 ry low tide and the fish taken out. If the proprietor take more than 

 is requiied for his own consumption, the surplus is sent to the New- 

 York market. Occasionally, in some situations, the fishery is more 

 productive than the farm. Eut in the memory of the writer, the run 

 of shad has very much diminished. 



Mosshonkers. — The ManharSen or Mossbonker fishery follows in 

 June, after shad disappear. These fish run in immense shoals, and 

 are taken with a seine. They contribute greatly to increase the 

 crops of the husbandman, by being applied as manure, for which 

 alone they are taken. They are a species of herring, and an edible 

 fish, but so full of bones as to be almost wholly rejected as food. 

 The fishermen take and sell them to the farmers at seventy-five cents 

 the thousand. Tney are applied to corn, potatoes, buckwheat, cab- 

 bages, &c., of which we shall speak under the head of manures. 



Spring and fall fike fishing. — There are also other inhabitants of 

 the ocean, frequenting the southern shores o{ the island, which di- 

 vert attention from farming. In the cool weather of spring and au- 

 tumn, small fikes are set extending but a short distance into the wa- 

 ter, for taking the smaller kinds of fish which run with the tides close 

 along shore, and furnish a domestic supply. Among them, however, 

 are sometimes fish of a larger size, and such as are taken with the 

 hook and line in deeper waters. In these fikes are taken 



Black-fish, Labrus tautoga. 



Striped-bass, Perca mitchelli. 



Weak-fish, Labrus squeteague, 



King-fish, Scioena nebulosa, 



Tomcod or frost fish, Gadus tomcodus. 



Flounder, Pleuronectes planus. 



Horse-foot. — In the months of June and July, the horse-foot is 

 taken in considerable quantities by hand in shallow water, and at low 

 tide. This is an animal of the crab kind, with a body in the shape 

 of a horse's hoof, with a horny triangular tail. It is the Monoculus 

 polyphemus of naturalists, and the king-crab of the East Indies. It 

 creeps upon the bottom with a slow pace, and is easily taken into the 

 hand by the tail. Crawls are established along shore, in which hun- 

 dreds are sometimes taken at a ti(U'. They have been sold for a dol- 

 lar a hundred, but in 1842 for half that price. They are cut open 

 and given to hogs, ducks and chickens. The females are full oi a 

 gelatinous substance, and of eggs the size of a large pin's head, upon 

 which ducks and chickens feed with avidity and grow rapidly. Hogs 



Scientific names from 

 Mitchell's N. Y. Fishes. 



