OF NORTH CAROLINA. 255 



Cavallies are taken in the same places. They 

 are of a "browninsh color, have exceeding small 

 scales and a very thick skin ; they are as firm a 

 fish as ever I saw ; therefore will keep sweet, in 

 the hot weather, two days when others will stink 

 in half a day, unless salted. They ought to be 

 scaled as soon as taken ; otherwise you must pull 

 off the skin and scales when boiled, the skin be- 

 ing the choicest of the fish. The meat which is 

 white and large, is dressed with this fish. 



Bonetos are a very palatable fish, and near a 

 yard long. They haunt the inlets and water near 

 the ocean, and are killed with the harpoon and 

 fishgig. 



The blue fish is one of our best fishes, and al- 

 ways very fat. They are as long as a salmon, and in- 

 deed, I think, full as good meat. These fish come 

 in the fall of the year, generally after there has 

 been one black frost, when there appear great 

 shoals of them. The Hatteras Indians and others 

 run into the sands of the sea, and strike them, 

 though some of these fish have caused sickness 

 and violent burnings after eating of them, which 

 is found to proceed from the gall that is broken 

 in some of them and is hurtful. Sometimes many 

 cart loads of these are thrown and left dry on the 

 sea side, which comes by their eager pursuit of 

 the small fish in which they run themselves ashore, 

 and the tide leaving them, they cannot recover 

 the water again. They are called blue fish, be- 

 cause they are of that color and have a forked 

 tail and are shaped like a dolphin. 



