NATURAL HISTOEY OF IMPORTANT FOOD-FISHES. 237 



numbers in pounds and with the gill-net, usually along the lower edge 

 of the net. Accordiug to Dr. Yarrow, they are not taken 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 loth of June, when they 

 appear on the surface and are caught in large numbers, in the usual 

 manner. 



Great interest attaches to this fish in consequence of the changes that 

 have taken place in its abundance, and even its actual occurrence on our 

 coast, within the historic period. The precise nature and extent of this 

 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 Rarities Displayed," 1672,) where, on page 

 96, he mentions the " blew-fish, 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 sort of fish next to rock-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 "Houndfish;" the 

 "Speckled Houndfish" and the "Blew Houndfish, called Horsefish." 

 There appears to be no species to which this reference could apply, ex- 

 cepting 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 man- 

 uscript vocabulary obtained by President Stiles, in 1762, from a Pequod 

 Indian at G-roton, Connecticut, there is mentioned the " Aquauiidunt 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, 1 the blue-fish 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. (See 

 page — .) It has been suggested that the disease which attacked the In- 

 dians may have been in consequence of an epidemic in the fish upon 

 which they fed, or else that it invaded both fish and Indians simultane- 

 ously, resulting in almost their entire extermination. 



According to Dr. Mitchell, 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 blue-fish increased, the sque- 

 teague or weak-fish diminished in about the same ratio. 



According to Mr. Smith, of Newport, (page 20 of testimony,) his 

 father used to catch blue-fish some time about the year 1800, when they 

 were very abundant and of large size, weighing from 16 to 18 pounds. 



Captain Fraucis Pease, of Edgartown, also testified that his father 

 spoke of large blue-fish at the end of the preceding century, some of 

 them weighing 40 pounds. This leaves an interval between 1764 and 

 toward the end of the century, in which no mention is made of the blue- 

 fish, and which may probably indicate its absence, as during that time 

 there were many works published relating to the local history and do- 

 mestic economy of New England, and which would doubtless have taken 

 note of so conspicuous a fish had it been present. 



Whether they existed uninterruptedly during the century intervening 



1 Collections Massachusetts Historical Society for 1794, vol. iii, 1810. 



