THE OYSTER-INDUSTRY. 235 



"to one of tbese orderly commiiuities in Oysterdom known as a 'planting firouud'. We are seated in a boat, and, 

 gliding through the phosphorescent sheen, soon near the oyster-bed. It is a moonlight night, about the close of 

 summer. Hark! what singular sound is that? Boom! boom! boom! Almost sepulchral, and, strange to say, it 

 comes up from beneath the waters. One would think they were I^ereids' groans. The oystermen, whose capital 

 lies invested there, hear it with sad forebodings of loss, which they cannot well sustain. It is one of a school of 

 visitors who come with marauding purpose. The fishermen call it the big drum. Tliis drumfish is known among 

 naturalists by the name Pogonias chromis. The acknowledged beat of this scamp is the Gulf Stream, from Cape 

 Cod to Florida; and a terrible fellow is this Pogonias, for he is recorded as having attained the great weight of 

 eiglity pounds. One of twenty-flve jiounds would be but au ordinary afiair. Their mouths are furnished with 

 pave;::euts of hard teetli, a bttle rounding on the top, and set together exactly as are the cobblestones of the old 

 city highways. The function of these dental pavements is to crunch the young oysters, which, after being crushed, 

 are thus swallowed, shells and all." 



The great schools in which these fish go are illustrated by the following records: 



On Monday last John Earle an(t sons canght, with a seine, at one draught, in Bristol ferry, 719 drumfish, weighing ujpwanl of 50 

 pounds each. Niles' JTeckl)/ Reijister, July, 1833, also says: "Some days ago a liaill was made in Great Egg Harbor bay, near Bearsley's 

 point, cape May, at which 21H drumlisb were caught, their entire weight being from 8,C00 to 9,000 pounds. This is said to be the largest 

 haul of that description of fish ever made iu that bay." 



Another still larger, noticed as a great haul of drumtish : "On Wednesday, June 5, 1804," says the iiostmaster of Oyster Ponds. 

 Long Island, "one seine drew on shore at this place at a single' haul 12,2C0 fish, the average weight of which was found to be 33 pounds, 

 making in the aggregate 202 tons, 250 pounds. This undoubtedly is the greatest haul of this kind ever known in this country. A hundred 

 witnesses are ready to attest the truth of the above statement. They are used for manure." 



Knowing the carnivorous propensity of the fish, one can easily imagine how an inroad of such a host must 

 afi'ect an oyster-ground. They do not seem to make any trouble, however, north of XewTork city, and rarely along 

 the south side of Long Island. At Staten Island and Keyport they come iu every few years and devastate thousands 

 of dollars' worth of property. Such a memorable visitation happened about 1S50, in July. The following summer 

 the planters iu Prince's bay, fearing a repetition of the onslaught, anchored shingles and pieces of waste tin on 

 their beds, scattering them at short intervals, in the Lope that their dancing, glittering surfaces might act as 

 "scare-crows" to frighten the fish away. Whether as an eflect of this, or because of a general absence, no more 

 drums appeared. In New York bay, oft' Caven point, where the old " Elack Tom reef" is now converted into an 

 island, one planter of Keyport lost his whole summer's work— material and labor — in a single September week, 

 through au attack by drums. A City Island planter reported to me a less of $10,000 in one season a few years ago; 

 but the East river 'is about the northern limit of the drums, at least as a nuisance to oyster-culture, so far as I cau 

 learn. The vexation of it is, too, that the drum does not seem to eat half of what he destroys ; but, on the contrary, 

 a great school of them wiU go over a bed, wantonly crushing hundreds of oysters and dropping them untasted, but 

 in fragments, on the bottom. 



In return, the drum is himself an edilile fish, but of rather poor quality, and only seen in market Ijetween July 

 and October. There is a tradition that there were only ten species of fish known to the Duti'h when they discovered 

 America. When they caught the shad they named it e//y (eleventh) ; the bass ^MY(//y (twelfth); and the drum, 

 dertienen (thirteenth). Our name, however, owes its origin to the strange, hollow, roaring noise the fish makes in 

 the water, like the roll of a miifiled drum. 



When drums are absent, various other carnivorous fishes prey upon oysters, such as the tautog, sheejjshead, 

 toad-fish, members of the cod family (if any of them ever get near a bed, which is rarely at present), and the skates 

 or rays. Of all these the sting-ray or "stingaree" of tlie fishermen (including several sorts of Bijbaxfcs) is tlie 

 chief. He is always present and steadily at work along the whole coast. Lying flat ou the bottom, he works 

 liis triang-ixlar flippers until he has washed away the sand from about the oyster he wishes to .seize, if it is at all 

 concealed, and then crushes it between his ijowerful jaws. Even clams do not escape his sagacity in cai)ture and 

 strength of mastication, but are devoured in great numbers. A dredge can hardly be hauled from Xew Jersey to 

 Cape Cod, without bringing one or more ofthe.se enemies of the hard-working oysterman. 



Minor enemies. — Beside these foes, many minor "vermin" must be contended with. The oyster-catcher, 

 and other birds, steal not a few at low tide. Barnacles, annelids, and masses of hydroid-growth sometimes form 

 about the shells, and intercept the nutriment of the moUusk, until he is nearly (r quite starved; thi.-. is particularly 

 true iu southern waters. At Staten Island the planters are always apprehensive of trouble from the colonization 

 of mussels on their oyster-beds. The mussels having established themselves grow rajiidly, knit the oysters together 

 by their tough threads, making culling very ditlicult, and take much of the food whicli otherwise would help fatten 

 the more valuable shellfish. In the Delaware bay the spawn of squids, in the shape of clusters of egg-cases, 

 appropriately called " sea-grapes ", often grows on (he oy.sters so thickly, during the inaction of sumnicr, that when 

 the fall winds come, or the beds are disturbed by a dredge, great quantities of oysters rise to the surface, buoyed 

 up by the light parasitic "grapes", and are floated away. This is a very curious danger. Lastly, ceitain crabs are 

 to be feared — chiefly the CaUinecfes hastatiis, our common "soft ci-ab", and the Cancer irrorai us. Probably the latter 

 is the more hurtful of the two. I have heard more complaint ou this score at the western end of the Great South 



