EASTERN COAST FISHES. 26g 



what the fish required. I still had doubt whether the shad would 

 take it, as he was on his way up the river, not to eat, but for the 

 purpose of propagation. He had started from his ocean home fat 

 and vigorous, with accumulated force enough to carry him through, 

 with the little addition he might perhaps receive from the fresh 

 water infusoria that he might imbibe by the way. This idea was 

 strengthened by the fact that shad are fatter caught below Phil- 

 adelphia than farther up the river. They .are not as firm in fibre 

 and delicately tasted as at Trenton or Easton. Exercise in fresh 

 water absorbs fat, hardens the muscle, and heightens the flavor. 

 I prepared a glutinous mass of Irish moss (Chondrus crispus), 

 gluten from wheat flour, oyster juice, fibrine from bullocks' blood, 

 and powdered sulphate of barytes. The last article being taste- 

 less, insoluble, and heavy, was added to give weight to the com- 

 pound; All these articles were well mixed and ground together, 

 sufiicient oyster juice being added to soften and discolor the Irish 

 moss. I rolled the mass into* sticks, like macaroni, dried with a 

 gentle heat, and ground up into fragments as coarse as Dupont's 

 ducking powder. My hooks^No. 6 Kirby's — were whipped on 

 brownish-green linen snoods often inches length ; the snoods were 

 fastened at intervals of a foot on a line of the same color. The 

 three hooks attached to the line were covered thickly nearly to 

 their points with the preparation in its moist state, and then dried 

 until the coating became hard, so that in dissolving slowly it might 

 adhere for a long time. Thus prepared, I tried my first experiment 

 in deep water below the first island down stream, from the mouth 

 of the Pohatcong, near the Belvidere Railroad. The night previ- 

 ously, as a lure, I had sifted a pint or more of the preparation into 

 the water at the head of the eddy, and anchored a coarse strainer 

 cloth bag, containing about the same quantity at the same place 

 Owing to the barytes, the powder thrown into the water sank down 

 and remained on the water to dissolve slowly. In the morning I 

 drifted gently down the river, and anchored my boat noiselessly 

 about twenty yards above the pool. With a small gourd for a float, 

 giving five feet for the depth of the lowest hook, I paid out line 

 until the float was about four yards below the cloth bag. I had 

 not long to wait. The float began to bob, and was soon under 

 water. I tightened the line, and found a fish of peculiar action was 



