76 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Canadian institute has several well adapted for this also, varying from 

 two and one quarter to four inches in length. The early Huron prac- 

 tice of marrying the nets to two young girls, is well known, and 

 seemed long established when the French first met them. The Al- 

 gonquins had an old story that Michabou taught their ancestors how 

 to make nets, having taken the hint from watching a spider catch a 

 fly. Nets were therefore plainly an aboriginal invention, and their 

 use is directly connected with the large numbers of flat net stones 

 found by all considerable streams. These nets were made of native 

 hemp, out of which some of the New York Iroquois still make thread 

 in their primitive way. 



Mr William L. Stone gave Dr Rau an ' account of a stone struc- 

 ture, evidently a fish-pen, in the state of New York.' It was on the 

 right or south bank of Fish creek, the outlet of Saratoga lake, and 

 the plan and description will be found on page 201, of Prehistoric 

 fishing. It is a matter of considerable interest, and Mr Stone readily 

 disposes of a seeming difficulty, the fact that the opening to the pound 

 was down stream, by supposing that it was employed mainly when 

 the fish were ascending the creek to spawn. Such pounds were fre- 

 quent among the indians elsewhere within historic times, made of 

 stones or wood, and there is no great difficulty in assigning such a use 

 to this. In Sullivan's campaign, in 1779, a town was destroyed on 

 the present site of Waterloo, where were ' several fish ponds abound- 

 ing opposite the town.' This was the statement of Sergeant Major 

 George Grant. Gen. John S. Clark, a well known antiquarian made 

 a note on this: ' These were circular enclosures of stone from 30 to 

 40 feet in diameter, built upon the rocky bed of the stream, where the 

 water was neither very deep or rapid, so constructed as to permit the 

 water to pass through, but to retain the fish.' These, of course, were 

 simply places for keeping surplus stock. 



These were modern structures. When the famous ' Lessee com- 

 pany ' made its agreement with the Six Nations in 1787-88, the In- 

 dians reserved ' one half of the falls and convenient places for weirs, 

 for the purpose of catching fish and eels, from Cross lake to the Three 

 Rivers.' Without questioning whether eels are fish, it is clear that 

 the Iroquois attached importance to the use of weirs, and that some 



