94 Thirty-Second Annual Meeting 



creek, there, whicl> is intended, "Muskeget," .too, an island near 

 Nantncket, may indicate bass, for fish, we have "Miskenonge,"' 

 "great fish,'' applied to the pike of the lakes; and it is also a 

 river, on the map, not far from Montreal." 



De Vries in his "Short Historical and Journal Notes of sev- 

 eral Voyages made in the four parts of the World, namely, Eu- 

 rope, Africa, Asia and America" (Hoorn, 1655), translated by 

 Henry C. Murphy, in his "Voyages from Holland to America 

 1632-1644" (published New York, 1853), gives us a differeut 

 derivation of the name "twalft" for the striped bass. He says, 

 "there is a species of fish which by our people is called the twelve, 

 and which has scales like a salmon, and on each side six black 

 streaks, which I suppovse is the reason they call it twelve. It is 

 the size of a codfish, very delicate, and good tasted for eating; 

 the head is the best as it is full of brains like a lamb's head. The 

 fish comes from the sea into the river in the Spring about the 

 last of March and April and continues until the last of May. It 

 is caught in large quantities and dried by the Indians, for at this 

 time the squaws are engaged in sowing their maize, and cultivat- 

 ing the land, and the men go a fishing in order to assist their 

 wives a little by their draughts of fish. Sometimes they catch 

 them with seines from seventy to eighty fathoms in length, 

 which they braid themselves, aud on which, in place of lead, they 

 hang stones, and instead of the corks which we put on them they 

 fasten small sticks of an ell in length, round and sharp at the 

 end. Over the purse, they have a figure made of wood, resemb- 

 ling the devil, and when the fish swim into the net and come to 

 the purse, so that the figure begins to move, they begin to cry 

 out and call upon the Mannetoe, that is, the devil, to give them 

 many fish. They catch great quantities of this fish ; which they 

 also catch in little set-nets, six or seven fathoms long, braided 

 like a herring net. They set them on sticks into the river, one, 

 and one and a half fathoms deep." 



John Josselyn in "An iVccount of Two Voyages to New Eng- 

 land" (163S, 1663), published (London 1675), says: "The 

 Basse is a salt water fish too, but not an end (sic) taken in Riv- 

 ers where they spawn, there hath been 3000 Basse taken at a set ; 

 one writes that the fat in the bone of a Basses head is his braines 

 which is a lye." 



