306 AMERICAN FISHEa 



which must not be confounded with the Malasheganay — or Black 

 Sheep's-Head, Corvina Richwdsonii, a congenerous fish, taken nearly 

 in the same waters, and with the same bait — any, to wit, of the fresh- 

 water Molluscas, and, above all, with the Cray-Fish — which is as ex- 

 cellent as this other is abominable on the table : 



" This is a villain in general estimation — the pest of the fisher for 

 Bass — a fish that putteth the cook, who would render him acceptable 

 at table, in a quandary — from which, I am sorry to say, I cannot re- 

 lieve her, though she be at her wit's end. 



" He is generally brown, gray or reddish above, and of a dead, im- 

 pure white below. His head is large, and his body is flattened latterly, 

 though the frying-pan rejecteth him. His ordinary weight is two or 

 three pounds, though he sometimes weighs five, and even six. His 

 food, his haunts, his habits, are similar to those of the Black Bass, 

 whom he ever accompanieth, as though he were intended by nature as 

 a foil to set off the merits of that jewel of the flood. He is despised, 

 yea, detested, by the choleric angler, who pulls him out, and then 

 dasheth him upon the stones. 



" The Sheep's-Head of the sea is a lusty, crafty fish, bepraised alike 

 by the fisherman and the epicure. At the turn of the tide, he takes 

 the whole soft clam on your hook at a mouthful, and chews it, shell 

 and all, and pulls like a Salmon as you draw him" in ; and his radiant, 

 deep and broad-barred sides — as he flaps about on the sand of that 

 low islet in the great south bay of Long Island, to which you have jusl 

 hauled him — bow brilliantly they show, and make you think of the 

 dying Dolphin, and of old Arion ! And when he reposes at the head 

 of the table — fit place for him — beautiful, though boiled, how heartfelt 

 is the homage he receives from all around ! Truly, it is libel on him. 

 to call by the same name this Paria of the lakes. 



" And yet our fish is vigorous, and not altogether destitute of beauty, 

 to the eye at least of those who know him not. Is it not chronicled, 

 that at Black-Rock, a strange angler once bartered away two noble 

 Bass for two large Sheep's-Heads, which, for the nonce, were called 

 White Bass ? ' The freckled toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a 

 precious jewel in his head'— and our fish, in his clumsy cranium, 

 wears two small loose bones, serrate, and white and polished, which 

 must have some use to him, some wondrous adaptation to his mode of 



