MEASE ON THE ROCK FISH. o(X'J> 



depth of water will permit them, and lie among the bushes growing in the 

 water, or that may have fallen therein. Sometimes, however, owing to 

 violent rains, or to the sudden melting of snow, or an unusual quantity 

 of water descending the rivers, the fish are forced from their abode 

 back again to the salt water, and remain there until the freshes subside, 

 when they invariably reascend. The great places of winter resort for 

 those fish are, Motetecunk, thirty miles from Long Branch, and the 

 rivers of Elk and Egg-Harbour. 



During the time that those rivers continue frozen, the fish are caught 

 by sinking nets through holes cut in the ice : and in the spring of the 

 year, they are sometimes taken in great numbers, by stretching a net 

 across those streams which are too shallow to permit the seine to be 

 drawn in the usual w T ay, and then sweeping the stream from above with 

 bushes connected together, so as to extend from one bank to the other. 

 This practice is, however, justly reprobated as a species of poaching, 

 dishonourable, and highly injurious to the fishing business ; and one 

 instance was mentioned to me of a creek being completely exhausted of 

 fish, ever since the first avaricious haul was made in it : this haul was 

 made seven years ago. The stream alluded to is Beaver-dam Creek,, 

 that empties over the head of Squam Bay, north of Motetecunk, and, 

 previously to the date mentioned, was noted as one of the constant 

 places of resort for rock-fish and perch, during the winter. 



The largest rock-fish, that is, those that weigh from twenty-five 

 pounds to sixty pounds, are called green heads, and do not ascend the 

 rivers, but remain at sea all winter, and spring, until about the middle of 

 May, when they come into the bays of Delaware and New-York, to 

 spawn. In the Delaware bay they never ascend higher than where the 

 salt water meets the fresh. At that season they are remarked to be 

 unusually fat, but the males are fatter than the females. The roes of 



