HoLLiCK : Quaint Old Work on Seaweeds 9 1 



beginning, and the 6th of May is the end of the season for gill 

 nets." 



In regard to the productiveness of the shad he remarks : " If 

 Spurzheim had lived to visit the Connecticut and the Hudson . . . 

 he might have discovered in the shad a very prominent bump 

 of ' philoprogenitiveness.' Else how can we account for their 

 annual pertinacity in running the gauntlet in our rivers, to deposit 

 their spawn in fresh and congenial water ? The seines are thrown 

 around them at the Narrows and at Coney Island; the fikes 

 entrap them in the shoal water, and from Bedlow's Island to 

 far above Tappan, the gill-nets obstruct their passage in the 

 channel. The porpoise, the fish hawk, and man, pursue them 

 from their first advent on the coast, until the act of spawning in 

 the fresh water has reduced them to skeletons. Yet periodically 

 and annually they revisit the troubled waters to perpetuate their 

 species." 



