comcus. 261 



ed purses. Being lowered' in a still cove, where 

 they are moving about in prodigious shoals, they 

 rush into the bag to snatch at the floating food ; 

 as the man raises it he shuts the clasps, and thus 

 draws a bushel into the boat at once. 



To prepare these -fish for the table it is custom- 

 ary to strip the skin off entirely, leaving the flesh 

 white and delicate. For frying they are excellent. 

 Boys are everywhere seen at the docks and on 

 the bridges, about Boston, in the season, enjoying 

 the delightful sport of drawing up the never fail- 

 ing perch. One cause of this great plenty, we 

 apprehend, arises from the circumstance that 

 other fishes are unwilling to molest them, on ac- 

 count of the dangerous effects of the spines. 



It is pretended that there is a remarkable varie- 

 ty of the blue-perch, — having a reddish shade 

 all over the body. For ourselves, we do not 

 credit it ; there seems to be a strange ambition 

 influencing some of our naturalists, to discover 

 new species, which never existed except in their 

 own distempered imaginations. To all appear- 

 ance, the perch or cunner is the tautog in minia- 

 ture,, and if it were black it would be supposed 

 the young of that fish. 



Weak-Fish, Squeteague, or Squetee, — 

 JLabrus Squeteague. Unpoetical as the name is, 



