NEW YORK: EASTERN END OF LONG ISLAND. 361 



side. The bass have been scarce this year, and now (November G) the men say none are to be 

 found. Daniel Loper lives in his boat and fishes wherever he finds fish, at Montauk Point, Block 

 Island, or elsewhere. He reports fishing as poor this year. Many men living here are engaged in 

 the menhaden fisheries during the season, after which they fish with seines for other species. Few 

 fish are shipped from the place. The catch for the past season has been: Fresh fish, 40,000 pounds; 

 soft clams, 200 bushels; hard clams, 100 bushels; crabs, 30 barrels; eels. 4,000 pounds. 



EAST HAMPTON. The men here fish along the ocean shore and in Gardiner's Bay. They take 

 scallops, clams, eels, and other fish in the latter and bass and other fish in the former. There are 

 twenty-five professional and seventy-five semi-professional fishermen. The bass season begins in 

 October and lasts for five or six weeks, or until cold weather sets in. Flat-fish are taken in fykes. 

 Eels are speared, potted, and seined with a seine of fine mesh. The scallops taken are consumed 

 locally; $10,000 are invested in nets and gear, and $30,000 in vessels and boats. The catch for the 

 year was: Fresh fish, 50,000 pounds; soft clams, 500 bushels; hard clams, 150 bushels; scallops, 

 4,000 pounds; eels, 0,000 pounds. 



SAG HARBOR. This is the terminus of a branch of the railroad, and many fish caught by 

 the men living at other points are shipped from here. Sixty men are engaged in the menhaden 

 and other fisheries; half of them take clams and scallops. Three large and ten small sloops, 

 aggregating 150 tons, are engaged in the business. At the time of my visit, October 21, the scal- 

 lop season was not fairly opened, as the weather was too warm for them to keep well, but the out- 

 look was good and the scallopers were confident of a good catch. Hard winters kill the species, 

 but last winter was an open one and there was plenty of seed and few storms to drive them ashore 

 to perish. They go in schools, and when driven on shore they soon freeze. In a storm Capt. S. 

 Pidgeon. of sloop F. L. Nora, says that, if possible, they will work to windward, but if not possi- 

 ble, they are then drifted to leeward. He has seen them swimming in a crowd ten feet deep. 



John Talmage, who has fished for fifty years, says that the porgies are increasing both in num- 

 bers and size; striped bass are getting scarcer every year; weakfish are not so plenty as ten years 

 ago, but still fairly abundant, while bhiefish are increasing. In referring to Spanish mackerel he 

 said: "They were plenty twenty- five years ago, when they first came, and I have often caught one 

 hundred in a night near Mattituck. This abundance lasted only four or five years, and they are 

 very scarce now." 



Mr. L. Palmer says : "Three years ago I was the agent of the railroad at this place, and during 

 cold weather there were from 3 to 5 tons of fiat-fish per day shipped from this station." It may 

 be proper to remark here that the Long Island fishermen do not distinguish the difference between 

 the several species of PIcuroncctida', but class them all as "flat-fish." The names flounder, plaice, 

 dab, window-pane, &c., seem to be unknown, and in conversation with fishermen in different parts 

 of the island I observed that they knew that some had the mouth on the right and others on the 

 left side, and that there were a few other differences, such as shape of the tail-fin, &c., but they 

 either seemed to regard these things as accidental or not of importance. A few of them had 

 noticed that those which lay upon a certain side of the body and had different tails grew larger 

 than the others, but on the island the term "flat-fish" co\ers all the species found. 



There are $4,000 invested in nets and tools and $30,000 in boats. The year's catch was 

 as follows: Fresh fish, 2,000,000 pounds, of which 000,000 pounds were flat-fish; eels, 40,000 

 pounds; scallops, 50,000 pounds; soft clams, 3,000 bushels; hard clams, 1,000 bushels ; lobsters, 

 200 barrels; hard crabs, 100 barrels, none shipped; oysters, 500 bushels. With the fresh fish are 

 included some cod caught by men living here, though taken in other localities. The sloop Geor- 

 giana sails from Sag Harbor and fishes occasionally for bass, and at other times goes for cod, 



