GREAT HORDES OF DRUM-FISHES. , 143 



of American writers on animals and out-of-door matters, " to one of these 

 orderly communities in Oysterdom known as a ' planting-ground.' We 

 are seated in a boat, and, gliding through the phosphorescent sheen, soon 

 near the oyster-bed. It is a moonlight night, about the close of summer. 

 Hark! what singular sound is that? Boom! boom! boom! Almost 

 sepulchral, and, strange to say, it comes up from beneath the waters. 

 One would think they were Nereids' groans. The oystermen, whose 

 capital lies invested there, hear it with sad forebodings of loss which they 

 cannot well sustain. It is one of a school of visitors who come with ma- 

 rauding purpose. The fishermen call it the big drum. This drum-fish is 

 known among naturalists by the name Pogonias chromis. The acknowl- 

 edged beat of this scamp is the Gulf Stream, from Cape Cod to Florida ; 

 and a terrible fellow is this pogonias, for he is recorded as having at- 

 tained the great weight of eighty pounds. One of twenty-five pounds 

 would be but an ordinary affair. Their mouths are furnished with pave- 

 ments of hard teeth, a little rounding on the top, and set together exactly 

 as are the cobble-stones of the old city highways. The function of these 

 dental pavements is to crunch the young oysters, which, after being 

 crushed, are thus swallowed, shells and all." 



It is the habit of these fishes to go in great schools. " On Wednesday, 

 June 5, 1804," reads a record of Oyster Ponds, Long Island, " one seine 

 drew on shore at this place at a single haul 12,250 fish, the average weight 

 of which was found to be 33 pounds, making in the aggregate 202 tons 

 250 pounds. This, undoubtedly, is the greatest haul of this kind ever 

 known in this country. A hundred witnesses are ready to attest the 

 truth of the above statement. They are used for manure." * I find in 

 Nileis Weekly Register, July, 1833, a similar note : " Some days ago a 

 haul was made in Great Egg Harbor Bay, near Bearsley's Point, Cape May, 

 at which 218 drum-fish were caught, their entire weight being from 8000 

 to 9000 pounds. This is said to be the largest haul of that description 

 of fish ever made in that bay." 



Knowing the carnivorous propensity of the fish, one can easily imag- 

 ine how an inroad of such a host must affect an oyster-ground. They do 

 not seem to make any trouble, however, north of New York City, and 

 rarely along the south side of Long Island. At Staten Island and Key- 

 port they come in every few years and devastate thousands of dollars' 

 worth of property. Such a memorable visitation happened about 1850, in 

 July. The following summer the planters in Prince's Bay, fearing a rep- 



* That is, the fishes — as I understand it — not the witnesses I 



