MIGEATIONS OF THE BLUEFISH. 435 



they are not takea with the hook about Beaufort until about the 1st of July. They do not bite, 

 however, in Vineyard Sound until from the 10th to the 15th of June, when they appear on the 

 surface, and are caught in large numbers in the usual manner." 



In the first week of May, 1878, about a thousand Blueflsh, weighing four pounds each, were 

 caiight off Long Island at Canarsie and West Hampton. This is about two months earlier than is 

 usual for them to be taken in any considerable numbers. 



"Pbeiodicity. — Great interest attaches to this fish in consequence of the changes in its 

 abundance, and even its actual occurrence on our coast, within the historic jieriod. The precise 

 nature and extent of the variation has not been established, nor whether it extended along the 

 entire coast or not. Its earliest mention for our waters is in the work of Josselyn (' New England 

 Earities Displayed,' 1672), where, on page 96, he mentions the 'blew-flsh, or horse,' as being 

 common in New England (his residence was on the New Hampshire coast, or near by in Maine,) 

 and 'esteemed the best of sort of fish next to rook-cod.' He says: 'It is usually as big as the 

 Salmon, and a better meat by far.' He also, on page 24, catalogues two kinds of 'Blew-fish' or 

 'Houndflsh'; the 'Speckeled Houndflsh' and the 'Blew Houndflsh, called Horsefish.' There 

 ax)pears to be no species to which this reference could ajiply excepting the subject of our present 

 article, this being the opinion of Mr. J. Hammond Trumbull, who has devoted much research to 

 determining the modern equivalents of ancient Indian names of animals, and to ■whom I am 

 indebted for the hint. Mr. Trumbull also remarks that in a manuscript vocabulary obtained by 

 President Stiles, in 1762, from a Pequod Indian at Groton, Connecticut, there is mentioned the 

 ' Aquaundunt or Blue-fish,' clearly the same as what now bears that name, which shows that this 

 fish was found in Fisher's Island Sound in 1762. 



"Again, according to Zaccheus Macy,^ the Blueflsh were very abundant about Nantucket 

 from the first settlement of the English on the island, in 1659, to 1763, and were taken in immense 

 numbers from the 1st of June to the middle of September. They all disappeared, however, in 

 1764, a period of great mortality among the Indians of that island. It has been suggested that 

 the disease which attacked the Indians may have been in consequence of an epidemic in the fish 

 upon which they fed, or else that it invaded both fish and Indians simultaneously, resulting in 

 almost their entire extermination.^ 



"According to Dr. Mitchill, this fish was entirely unknown about New York prior to 1810- 

 but they began to be taken in small numbers about the wharves in 1817, and were abundant in 

 1825. Immense numbers were caught at the Highlands in 1841. The doctor remarks, as has been 

 done repeatedly by others, that as the Bluefish increased, the squeteague or weak-fish diminished 

 in about the same ratio. 



"According to Mr. Smith, of Newport (Rhode Island), his father used to catch Bluefiish some 

 time about the year 1800, when they were very abundant and of large size, weighing from sixteen 

 to eighteen pounds. 



"Gapt. Francis Pease, of Edgartown, also testified that his father spoke of large Blueflsh at 

 the end of the preceding century, some of them weighing forty pounds. This leaves an interval 

 between 1764 and toward the end of the century in which no mention is made of the Bluefish, and 

 which may probably indicate its absence, as during that time there were many -oorks published. 



'Collections Massachusetts Historical Society for 1794, iii, 1810. 



2 " From the first coming of the English to Nantucket (1659) a large fal-tish, called the hlue-fish, thirty of which' 

 would fill a harrel, was caught in great plenty all round the island from the 1st of the sixth month (June) till the- 

 middle of the ninth month (Septemher). But it is remarkable that in the year 1764 . . . they all disappeared,, 

 and that none have ever been taken since. This has been a great loss to us." — Ibid., 1792, p. 159. Zaccheus Macy's- 

 Account of Nantucket." 



