DEAD WILLOW BEND. 143 



in lengtli. Sucli fish are not now seen on any of the 

 strings of even our most successful anglers. 



While it is true that the Delaware and its tributaries 

 could not, even in Indian times, boast of such monstrous 

 cattish as are found in the Mississippi, it is, on the oth- 

 er hand, equally true that our two or three species of cat- 

 fish did, at this earlier time, attain a much larger size 

 than now. Comparing the skull of one taken from the 

 ashes of the old camp-fire with that of a fish Aveighiug 

 four pounds, I found that the former, estimating the 

 weight by the proportionately greater breadth of the old 

 skull, to have been nearly twice as great. Tlie catfish 

 that the Indian had caught weighed between seven and 

 eight pounds, and none such have, I venture to state, 

 been taken from the creek or river within the present 

 century. 



This is also true of the stri2)ed-bass or rockfish, so far 

 as it is found in the river or its many tributary creeks. 

 In other words, the Indians ^vere accustomed to capture 

 large numbers that weighed from ten to thirty pounds. 

 Now, rockfish of even the lighter weight are not com- 

 monly found beyond the limits of the bay, and very 

 seldom does a " ten -pounder" find its way into the 

 creek. 



With other species it became a matter of numbers or 

 relative abundance, and not of weight. Even now stur- 

 geon wander far up the creek, and specimens measuring 

 six feet in lengtli are not uncommon ; but when the Ind- 

 ians were the sole possessors of the land, they depended 

 upon trapping and spearing sturgeon in abundance, and 

 its smoked flesh was an important article of food daring 



