BLUE-FISHING. 285 



in the land of the living. It was natural that he 

 should make up his mind promptly and the Com- 

 missioner surrendered to his views, with the saving 

 clause, grumblingly uttered, "that if there had 

 been thousands of birds they never would have 

 come near a blind made of seaweed and high as a 

 hill." So the "white wings" were spread and the 

 Au Revoir leaped away on her course toward the 

 west. 



Now they meant business, and their destination 

 was Fire Island Inlet, the largest feeder of salt 

 water to the Great South Bay, a channel through 

 which a considerable amount of commerce passes 

 and a spot that was once famous for the excellence 

 of its fishing, but which is now so hedged in with 

 pound-nets that the sport has greatly deteriorated, 

 while fish that spawn in the bay are almost excluded 

 from it. 



While the pound-nets have ruined the fishing in 

 the bay by excluding the spawning fish, they cannot 

 prevent some, especially of the smaller kinds, from 

 getting part of the way up the channel. The 

 " Cinderbeds," so called from a peculiar coral for- 

 mation which grows on them, are the favorite re- 

 sort of porgies, sea bass and robins or gurnards, 

 while small blue-fish are taken in the channel by 

 what is called "chumming." To the Cinderbeds 

 the Au Revoir flew as fast as the wind and our im- 

 patience would carry her. We bought a hundred 

 clams on the way from one of the working boats, 

 with which the bay is dotted every working day in 



