254 NATURAL HISTORY. 



Fulton market is the chief wholesale fish mart of the city. The 

 general place of traffic occupies the whole block bounded on the north 

 by Beekman street, south by Fulton street, east by South street, and 

 on the west by Front street. The stalls at which fish are sold by re- 

 tail are situated on an elevated platform, along the north side of the 

 general market, with the stands on both sides of a walk of moderate 

 width. The wholesale fish market is separated from the chief market 

 by South street, and consists of mere sheds, which front on South 

 street, and are on the rear bounded by the East river. Here the 

 staple fish are principally sold — cod, flounders, porgies, sea bass, &c. — 

 while those that are only occasionally brought to the city — the exotic 

 fishes, if I may so call them — are sold in tlie retail Fulton, and oftener 

 in Washington market. In the rear of these sheds are also moored 

 the vessels^ called wells, containing the living cod, which are takeri 

 from them as occasion requires. 



Washington market is situated on a corresponding block on the 

 opposite or western side of the city, and, like the other, fronts on the 

 south on Fulton street. A greater variety appears to be brought to 

 this than the other market, and I have here seen most of the rarer 

 species that are mentioned in my catalogue. 



My visits to this market were commenced with the intention of in- 

 vestigating and recording the time of arrival and disappearance of 

 the fishes most useful as food to man, as I was persuaded that the 

 earliest visitors are waited for with impatience, and as soon as they 

 arrive in our waters they are for sale, because they bring a higher 

 price than they do in the season of greatest plenty. Their compara- 

 tive abundance and other facts connected with their economical his- 

 tory could also be best learned here. 



You will notice that I mention in my catalogue seventy-nine species 

 in fifty-six genera and twenty families, all of which I have myself 

 seen. I have made mention of none that have not come under my 

 own observation ; and this accounts for the absence from my list of 

 species noticed by Dr. DeKay, and others, as being occasionally 

 brought to the New York markets. 



I have here discovered some fishes that I little expected to find sold 

 as food, while others that I have thought to see have not yet come 

 under my notice. These deficiencies are mostly included in the fam- 

 ilies of Scombridie and Clupidas. The great variety of species has sur- 

 prised me. The number seen by Tuyself nearly equals the whole 

 number described by Dr. Storer in his report of 1839 on the fishes of 

 Massachusetts. All of these species are occasionally found in the 

 waters of the State of New York, and most of them are common here. 



I have only walked leisurely through the market in i],e morning, 

 and have nt)t especially sought for rarities, anil probably several 

 species have been exposed for sale that have escaped my notice. 



Ko new species, unless, perhaps, one of Pomoxis, have been seen by 

 me. All have been descril)ed by Dr. DeKay, in his Zoology of New- 

 York, except the Pomoxis Esox nobilior, Th., and the Labrus appen- 

 dix of Dr. Mitchell, which DeKay did not describe from personal 

 observation, but merely abstracted the notice of it given by Dr. Mit- 

 chell in the second volume of the American Monthly Magazine (1818), 



