HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN MENHADEN. 11 



"Hartfokd, Conn., Dec. 19, 1874. 

 "Mr. G. Brown Goode: 



"My Dear Sir: Iu reply to yours of the 14th respectiug the local 

 names of the Brevoortia menhaden, about all I can give you is in my 

 note to the new edition of Eoger Williams' Key, ch. xix. Williams 

 names, together, among spring fish, ^^ Aumsuog and MunnawhatteaugP 

 Under the former name are included several species of the herring 

 tribe, awwi's it (plural, aMMis'wo//) meaning 'small fish.' MunnawliaUeaug, 

 corrupted to Menhaden, means, literally ' fertilizer' (' that which man- 

 ures.'') This name was applied to the herring and alewife as well as the 

 'menhaden' proper, — all these species being used by the Indians for 

 manuring their cornfields. 



"In the northern and eastern parts of New England the Brevoortia 

 is commonly called Pauhagen, and probably iu some localities 'pogha- 

 den' (as you write it and which is nearer the Indian original) though I 

 have not heard it so pronounced by eastern fishermen. This name in 

 the eastern dialects has precisely the same meaning as ' menhaden' (or 

 rather mtmnawhatteaug in Southern New England). The Abnaki {i. e., 

 coast of Maine) name was Poolcagan as Rasles wrote it, and the verb 

 from which it is derived he translated by ' on engraisse la terre.' 



" Mossbunker is classic. Dr. Bartlett in his Dictionary of American- 

 isms quotes from Dow, jr.'s Sermons a remark that ' under the surface 

 [of some smooth faced people] there may be found as many asperities 

 as there are bones in a mosshunlier.^ 



" Jacob Steendam mentions it in his poem ' in the Praise of New 

 Netherland,' printed in 1661. Dankers and Sluyter, the Journal of 

 whose Voyage to New York, 1679, was translated by Mr. Murphy for 

 the L. I. Historical Society's Collection, vol. i. (p. 100), saw in the 

 bay schools of innumerable fish, and a sort like herring called there 

 '' Marshanckers.'' 



"I have never looked for the origin of this name, but have had the 

 impression that it was Dutch, perhaps transferred from some European 

 species. I can make nothing of it as Indian. 

 " Yours truly, 



" J. HAMMOND TRUMBULL." 



22. According to Mr. J. V. C. Smith,* the older fishermen of Northern 

 Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine called the fish by the Indian 

 name "Pauhagen," and I myself have heard it called "poghadeu" by 

 old fishermen about Cape Cod. The modern name may easily have been 

 derived from this by dropping the final syllable. At the jiresent day 

 this name is almost universally in use among the fishermen north of 

 Cape Cod, though it is occasionally varied by "poggie" and "porgy." 

 The use of the latter name should be carefully avoided : the same name, 

 a corruption of the Indian "scuppaug," being commonly applied to 



* Natural History of the Fishes of Massachusetts, embracing a practical essay on 

 angling. By Jerome V. C. Smith, M. D., Boston. Allen and Ticknor, 1833. 



