196 



THE SHEEPSHEAD. 



price than any, excepting, perhaps, fresh salmon and trout. 

 The price varies from a dollar to one hundred and fifty cents, 

 for a fish of middle size; that is, from four to seven pounds. 

 Nothing, in 'the opinion of a New-Yorker, can exceed boiled 

 sheepshead, served up at a sumptuous dinner. 



'• General color of the sheepshead a white or obscure sil- 

 very, with a smutty daubing over the face and chin, and a 

 greenish tinge above the brow, and six or seven dark bands 

 or zones of an inch or more in breadth, regularly slanting 

 from back to belly : the latter a dull white, approaching, in 

 some places and individuals, to cream color. Scales large, 

 horny, distinguished by radiated and concentric lines, and 

 somewhat like a square rounded at the comers. They are 

 deeply inserted into the skin; adhere with remarkable firm- 

 ness ; and when they are separated, there is discoverable, on 

 the edges of the skin that enclosed them, a sort of tarnished 

 argentine or brightish leaden hue. Eays of all the fins coarse. 



" This noble fish visits the neighborhood of Long Island 

 annually. Emerging from the depths of the ocean, he fipds 

 in the recesses and inlets there, a plenty of the crabs, muscles, 

 and clams, on which he loves to feed. He confines himself 

 strictly to the salt water, never having been seen in the fresh 

 rivers. His term of continuance is only during the warmest 

 season ; that is, from the beginning of June to the middle of 

 September. He then departs to the unknown depths of the 

 Atlantic, and is seen no more until the ensuing summer. I 

 have, however, known him to stay later ; for one of the most 

 numerous collections of sheepshead I ever saw in New- York 

 mai'ket, was on the 4th of October, 1814. I have seen him 

 as late as the 17th. 



" The sheepshead swims in shoals, and is sometimes sur- 

 rounded in great numbers by the seine. Several hundred 

 have often been taken at a single haul, with the long sweep- 

 ing nets in use near Eaynortown, Babylon, and Fire Island. . 



