114 NOTES AND 



place of their origin. How shall we account for the salmon being in Connecti- 

 cut river, and in Merrimack and the rivers lying between, being perfectly desti- 

 tute of these fish ? dr. Franklin told Kalra, that in that part of New England 

 where his father lived, two rivers fell into the sea, in one of which they caught 

 great numbers of herring?, and in the other, not one j yet the places where the 

 rivers discharged themselves into the sea, were not far asunder. They had ob- 

 served, that when the herrings came in spring to deposite their spawn, they al 

 ways swam up the river, where they used to catch them, but never came into the 

 other. The doctor's father, who was settled between the two rivers, took some 

 in his nets as they were coming up for spawning, took out the spawn, and care- 

 fully carried it across the land into the other river. It was hatched, and tho 

 consequence was, that every year afterwards they caught more herrings in that 

 river, and this is still the case. This leads one to believe that the fish al 

 ways spawn in the same place where they were hatched, and from whence they 

 first put out to sea. 



Fat one time entertained hopes that the Journal of Hudson would have fur 

 nished satisfactory evidence on this subject, from the mode of fishing. It ap- 

 pears, that one time on the coast of Nova Scotia, he caught twenty-seven great 

 cods with hook and line, and if the fish he procured in the Hudson were obtained 

 in the same way, it would prove that the salmon was not among them, as this 

 fish is rarely got in any other way than by the spear or net. But it appears 

 that he also used a net. In one place he states, that the men went in his boat 

 on shore to fish, opposite against the ship, but could not find a good place ; this 

 shows that he employed the net. We can, therefore, place no reliance upon 

 this consideration. The migrations of salmon with us, are vernal, and after de- 

 positing their spawn, they return to the ocean. It is presumed, that there are 

 no salmon in our eastern rivers, in September Hudson must, therefore, have 

 meant some other fish. Linnaeus in his Systema Naturae, has enumerated fifty 

 six different species of the salmon genus. Hudson certainly did not intend the 

 common salmon. I believe, that the fish he meant, is our rock fish or streak- 

 ed basse, which comes into the river about that time in great numbers. 



Hudson says, " The river is full of fish; " " our boat went ashore and caught 

 great store of very good fish." We know that this is not the case, except when 

 the anadromous fishes ascend the river, and that even they have experienced a 

 great diminution. Adrian Van der Donk, M. D. who had resided nine years in 

 this state, when called New Netherland, and who published in the dutch lan- 

 guage, in 1G55, a topographical and Natural History of New Netherland, &c. 

 says that, the Hudson, the Mohawk, and all the waters of the country, abound 

 with every kind offish in their respective seasons, and that in March, 1647, at 

 the time of a great freshet, two whales of considerable bulk, went up the Hud 



