170 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 
Let it not be inferred from this that disrespect is held toward the 
great new English dictionary. Even the very best are liable to err, 
and the dictionary is not exempt from the Hability, although it does 
rank among the ‘‘ very best” and most useful of works; it may be 
added, too, that an American book to be noticed later on—Smith’s 
Natural History of the Fishes of Massachusetts—may have had some 
share, indirectly, in misleading the learned Englishmen. Smith says 
(p. 164): ‘‘ It has been suggested that alewife is derived from the 
Indian word a/oof—signifying a bony fish.” 4 
Naturally, the Indians had names for all fishes of economical value, 
and even for others. A few only, however, were adopted by the new 
colonists, and those only in forms considerably different from the orig- 
inals. Such are, besides menhaden, scup, chogset, tautog, and sque- 
teague, still more or less used along the Adlantic coast, namaycush, 
masamacush, winninish (ouananiche), togue, siscowet, al cisco in ae 
interior, and stit-tse, nissnee, quinnat, kisutch, and eulachon or oola- 
chan along the Pacific coast. 
ME 
The first special memoir of a really scientific nature on the fishes of 
this region was communicated in 1794 by William Dandridge Peck, 
but not published till 1804 in the Memoirs of the American Academy 
of Arts and Sciences. Peck was then resident at Kittery, N. H., and 
his memoir was entitled ‘‘ Description of Four Remarkable Fishes, 
taken near the Piscataqua in New Hampshire.” He aptly prefaces his 
article with the remark that ‘*that part of the Atlantic which washes 
the extensive seacoast of Massachusetts affords a considerable number 
of fishes, many of which are but little known,” and, after some further 
remarks, proceeds to describe the species. 
William Dandridge Peck was born in Boston, Mass., May 8, 1763, 
graduated at Harvard in 1782, and subsequently served for some years 
‘in a counting house in Boston.” ‘*He was an ingenious geete me 
and made a microscope and many other delicate instruments.” At the 
same time he was a devoted student of natural history and especially 
of ichthyology. His studies were crowned in 1805 by the reward of 
a professorship of natural history in Harvard College, and this was 
held till his death. He died October 3, 1822. 
Let us now return to his memoir. ~ As already noted, the species 
were sue The first was identified by him with the Opiads um imberbe 
aNo reference is made directly ‘tan Murray, under alewife, to Smith’ s work, inet only, in faet, to 
Winthrop (1678), Smyth (1867), Craig (1847), Perley (1852), and Lowell (1870). It is probable, how- 
ever, that Murray had consulted Bartlett’s Dictionary of Americanisms (1848, ete.). Bartlett at first 
derived alewife unhesitatingly from ‘Indian, aloof,’ referring only to ‘‘Alosa vernalis, Storer, Massa- 
chusetts Rep’t.’”” In the following explanatory remarks, however, it is less positively asserted that 
“the name appears to be an Indian one, though it is somewhat changed, as appears by the earliest 
account we have of it.’’ The only reference by Bartlett to an early author is to Winthrop (1678). 
Storer did not allude to the etymology or to aloof. It is quite likely that Smith’s work is the souree 
of information for later writers, though he may have derived the idea from some one else. 
