98 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



there, nor do tliey flourish when planted. This dearth seems to be due to the uufortnnate abundance of enemies, 

 especially starfishes, since there is evidence that anciently oysters were indigenous and plenty. At the extremity 

 of the northern cape " Oyster pond" and " Oyster Pond point" still preserve the recollection of what was once good 

 tonging ground. Mr. Sanderson Smith, of the United States Fish Commission, once told me that he had found near 

 there an extensive bed of dead shells of very large size, perforated throughout by boring-sponges. It is not 

 surprising to learn these facts, but they point to a state of things now past, for there is no oyster-catching or 

 planting at present in Pecouic bay, which has any commercial importance. 



The collector of the port at Sag Harbor, Mr. W. S. Havens, has for several years kept statistics of the yield 

 of the fisheries in this series of bays, from which it appears that in 1870-'SO, 5,000 bushels of oysters were taken; 

 their value was $5,000. Of other shellfish (chiefly scallops), $22,400 is given as the value of the catch, which 

 seems to me too low. 



At Eiverhead a company of six men was formed in the spring of 1880. They put up $50 each, and stocked 

 one acre a short distance below the village with G75 bushels of seed from New Haven; but it did not grow well. 



New Suftblk, Mattituck, and other towns in thalt neighborhood, do a large business in selling scallop-shells to 

 Ehode Island and Connecticut fishermen, to be used as cultch on the propagating beds. The price is 2J cents a 

 bushel, at which rate the 75,000 bushels of shells sold all alongshore brought in $1,875. 



At Southold oyster-culture has been begun by one man, who has planted 50 acres. 



At Orient 800 bushels of oysters were taken last year, and an insignificant quantity on the Napeague shore, 

 inside of Montauk. In the center of Montauk point is a large fresh pond, which it is proposed to turn into an 

 oyster-pond, by opening a sluice so as to admit the salt water. At Sag Harbor 500 bushels are reported as the 

 local catch, and another 500 bushels at Southami^ton. These three reports add up only 1,800 bushels. I suppose 

 the remainder of Mr. Havens' total of 5,000 bushels were picked up at chance times by fishermen in various 

 parts of the bays, and locally used. 



Statistical recapitulation foe East bivee (and Peconic bat): 



Number of planters, wholesale-dealers 958 



Value of shore-property $347, 200 



Number of vessels aud sail-boats engaged 1,268 



Value of same |218,800 



Number of men hired by planters or dealers 125 



Annual earnings of same ^67, 500 



Annual sales of — 



Native oysters - bushels.. 669,800 



Value of same |708,925 



I. THE SOUTH SHORE OF LONG ISLAND. 



36. THE GEEAT SOUTH BAY DISTEICT. 



Topography of Geeat South bat.— "Every schoolboy knows," as Macaulay used to say with his fine 

 contempt for illiteracy, that all along the shore of Long Island, between the outer fence of the rigid and pitiless 

 surfrepeUing beach aud the habitable shore, lie a series of shallow lagoons. The largest of these— thirty miles or 

 more long and from one to five miles wide — is the Great South bay. This water is the salvation of all southern 

 Long Island. If the land ran straight to the sea, and Fire island was not an island but simply a shore, the whole 

 great extent would be as uninhabitable as the bleak rear of Cape Cod, all the way from Prospect Park to Moriches. 

 But the bay furnishes an abundance of harbors; it abounds in fish profitable to catch; it tempts the ducks to its 

 sedgy shore, and so invites an annual migration of money-spending sportsmen; it is paved with the "luscious 

 clammes and crabfish" which the old Dutch poet extolled; and it furnishes to the world that marvel of delicacies, 

 the oyster. Hence, in place of a pine-barren and a howling, friendless coast, we find a string of populous and 

 thriving villages, the winter-havens of thousands of mariners, and the summer resort of city pleasure-seekers. 



This shallow sound communicates with the ocean through Fire island inlet and a few more openings to the 

 westward. The eastern part communicates through a narrow pass at Smith's point with East bay, which has no 

 communication with the sea, and is almost fresh. The depth of water in the bay does not exceed two fathoms in 

 its deepest part, and the rise and faU of the tide are very small, probably not more than a foot at the average. 

 The bay receives considerable supplies of fresh water from a number of streams, celebrated for their fine trout. 

 The western part of the bay has a sandy bottom, and its water, being in more direct communication with the ocean, 

 contains more salt than that of the eastern part, where the bottom is a mixture of black mud with sand. 



Abundance of oysters, past and peesent.— This Great South bay has been called the most populous 

 oyster-ground north of the Chesapeake bay, but the natural beds are all confined to the eastern end, where the 



