THE ItfLAXD PASSAGE. 33 



On our way to Kitty Hawk, we had passed a 

 number of nets which the local fishermen were haul- 

 ing, and Mr. Green, who had a mania for inter- 

 viewing every one he met, had promptly boarded 

 the first of the boats, obtained all the statistics, and 

 even helped make one haul. He found out that 

 they caught what they called chub, the big-mouthed 

 bass (Grystes salmoides), as large as eight pounds; 

 white perch; the robin, which is our sunfish; red 

 fin, our yellow perch; bull sucker, our black sucker; 

 sucker-mullet, our mullet, which were taken in the 

 creeks and up in the swamps, and nanny shad, which 

 seemed to be our gizzard shad, known in Baltimore 

 as bream. As they did not have all these varieties 

 in the boat at the time, we were not quite sure as to 

 the last. The fishermen knew nothing of the 

 spawning season, but we found roe three inches 

 long in a seven-pound big-mouthed black bass. 



There is a club house at Kitty Hawk Bay, belong- 

 ing to the Kitty Hawk Ducking Club, but it was 

 deserted when we were there by the club, and given 

 over to the possession of Captain Cain, who runs 

 the principal fishery in that part of the country. 

 He told us that the bass spawned in March, and 

 that the same kinds of fish were caught near there 

 which I have described. While we were ashore en- 

 joying his hospitality, a sudden squall came up and 

 blew most of the water out of the bay, so that the 

 small boat in which we had come ashore was left a 

 hundred feet from the edge of the water. 



The next day, which was December 8th, we 



