BLUE-FISHIKG. 281 



bays and inlets. What more need be said ? But 

 even if it hurts the feelings of the residents of the 

 South and West, the further fact must be stated 

 that a man may sit out of doors in the evening, may 

 actually stay out of doors all night, which is a great 

 comfort to some married men, without getting re- 

 mittant fever, intermittant fever, typhoid fever, yel- 

 low fever, break-bone fever, dangue fever or even 

 chills and fever. Wonderful as this may seem to 

 the occupants of the open country in this favored 

 land of freedom and fever, it is actually the truth. 

 In fact, nobody dies on Long Island except of old 

 age, and rarely then. 



On the south of the Island stretches a long, nar- 

 row lagoon of salt water, fed from the land by in- 

 numerable trout brooks pouring their sparkling 

 rivulets, scarcely more than a mile apart ; it is con- 

 nected with the sea by several inlets, cut by the 

 waves through the narrow beach of low sand that 

 separates the bay from the ocean. This lagoon, 

 called the Great South Bay, is in reality sixty miles 

 long, although it passes under several local names, 

 but a boat starting from Rockaway can sail sixty 

 miles eastward without going through any but natu- 

 ral water communications. 



The bay formerly abounded with fish. Here 

 weak-fish, king-fish, blue-fish, sheeps-head, sea bass 

 and other species lived and bred, while Spanish 

 mackerel, bonito and various migratory kinds visited 

 it in their season, if they did not deposit their eggs 

 there. They are still fairly numerous, although 



