FISHES OF MASSACHUSETTS. 57 



The fin rays are as follows : D. 5. 2-22 ; P. 19 ; V. 1-5 ; 

 A. 1. 2-17 ; C. 20. 



Although there are three spines before the anal, but one of 

 these can be said to be free ; of the remaining two, the second 

 is more free than that next the fin. 



Temnodon. Cuv. 



Generic characters. Tail unarmed ; a small fin, or free 

 spines before the anal ; the first dorsal is very slight and loio, 

 the second and the anal covered ivith small scales ; but their 

 principal character consists in a range of separate, pointed and 

 trenchant teeth in each jaio ; behind these, above, is a roio of 

 sm,all 07ies, and the vomer, palatine and tongue are furnished 

 toith others, very small a?id croivded. The operculum termi- 

 nates in tivo points, and there are seven rays in the branchice. 



T. saltator. Cuv. The Blue Fish. 



Trans. Lit, et Philosoph. Soc. N. Y. p. 424, et fig. 

 Cuv, et Valenc. Hist. Nat. des. Poiss, t. ix. p. 231. 



This species described by Dr. Mitchell as the '■^Scomber plum- 

 beus,'^ and called the " horse tnackerer' by the vulgar, is better 

 known in those portions of our state where it is taten, as the 

 "■ blue fish." Many years since it was held in high estimation 

 by the aborigines of our country. For about fifty years it disap- 

 peared from our coast, as may be learned from the following 

 passages, extracted from a journal of the first settlement of the 

 island of Nantucket, written by Zaccheus Macy, in 1793, and 

 contained in the third volume of the ''Massachusetts Historical 

 Collections." In this account, notice is taken of a great pesti- 

 lence which attacked the Indians of that Island in 1763 and 

 1764, with such mortality, that of the whole number 358, 223 

 died. He adds : " Before this period, and from the first com- 

 ing of the Enghsh to Nantucket, a large fat fish called the 

 blue fish, twenty of which would fill a barrel, was caught in 

 great plenty all round the island, from the 1st of the 6th till 

 8 



