BLUE-FISHING. 397 



common, but very pretty fish of our northern 

 waters. It is semi-transparent, and certainly looks 

 "good enough to eat," and the Superintendent, 

 ■who had never tasted it, assured us it was delicious, 

 but the Commissioner had eaten it before, and his 

 souvenirs were not favorable. However, we had 

 that cooked and the barred-killey, and the green- 

 killey, and the many varieties which are known 

 generally as "mummies," from the Indian word 

 mummachog , along the shores of Mattowax, the 

 Long Island of the aborigines, and Mr. Green ate 

 of them all. His plan with a fish is very simple ; 

 first to catch it, then to smell it, for he says every 

 fish has its own peculiar and distinguishing smell, 

 then to cook it, then to eat it. No matter what it 

 may be, nor how repulsive it may look. He once 

 tasted jelly-fish, but reported that it was bad ; in 

 fact that red pepper was a salve for the taste it gave, 

 and that when he had exhausted himself trying to 

 remove the recollection with water he scrubbed his 

 mouth out with sand. He tests the warmth of all 

 water in which he fishes with his mouth, and can 

 tell to a degree of the thermometer what it is, and 

 he drinks a little to ascertain if it is salt or fresh, 

 and if brackish exactly how brackish. 



Our white-bait were certainly very sandy ; they 

 were too small and pellucid to need cleaning, but 

 their stomachs were as full of sand as if they lived 

 on nothing else. Still the Superintendent insisted 

 that they were a very sweet fish, what there was of 

 them, a proposition to which the Commissioner 

 gave a disgusted assent. 



