52 American Fisheries Society 



favor with the children, whose precious hooks and lines it 

 innocently broke or made off with. And the fates had been 

 unfair enough to give to it the name of dogfish, for no 

 reason that any person could ever explain. And for the 

 reasons I have given the dogfish was despised, and its flesh 

 remained untasted. 



For the reasons I have given, and still another reason. 

 The Indians ate them ! The Indians ate dogs, too — and 

 there was the name ! Ugh ! 



In truth, the Indians probably ate them for the very best 

 reason in the world — that they are good to eat. But they 

 made use of them almost to the exclusion of the other va- 

 rieties I have mentioned, possibly not because they preferred 

 them, but because they could secure them more easily than 

 they could the others; for, you know, an Indian never fails 

 to follow the lines of least resistance. I have told you of 

 the dogfish's stupidity. He will bite at any sort of a bait, 

 be it alive or dead, large or small, and get himself fastened 

 on any kind of device; or he will lie still in shallow water 

 until you slip a noose around his neck and pull him out. 

 And so the Indians could get him easily, while it was diffi- 

 cult for them, being without fish hooks or spears or nets, 

 as they were, to secure any other fish. 



Did you ever see an Indian cook anything? If you did 

 I warrant you had no stomach for food of that same kind 

 for many a day thereafter while the memory of their culi- 

 nary process remained acute. I cannot tell you how they 

 cooked dogfish, and I would not if I could, for I want that 

 it shall be forever forgotten, as I shall show you before I 

 am through. But I have been told how they cook a dog — 

 and so have you, I doubt not. 



And so the poor dogfish, for no fault of his own, was 

 placed under the ban as an outcast, despised by all members 

 of society, and no person who had any care for his good 

 name or reputation dared taste the flesh of one. There were 

 a few. just one now and then, who defied the good opinion 



