498 
FOREST AND STREAM 
September, 1920 
AN AFTERNOON ON THE SEAHORSE 
DOWN TO THE SEA IN THE LITTLE WELL -BOAT THAT KEEPS THE 
NEW YORK AQUARIUM SUPPLIED WITH RARE DENIZENS OF THE DEEP 
By JOHN T. NICHOLS. 
T HE “Seahorse” is the new fishing 
boat which brings in living speci- 
mens from salt waters adjacent to 
New York City for exhibition at the New 
York Aquarium situated in Battery Park. 
On a hot July mid-day recently, word 
came over the telephone to the office of 
the Department of Ichthyology of the 
Natural History Museum that the “Sea- 
horse” was going down the bay and would 
start in about an hour, so as to go out 
with the turning tide. One last glance 
at the bottles of pickled fishes on the 
table, some from Africa, some from Peru, 
waiting their turn to be measured and 
have their fin-rays counted, the ceremony 
of a few last motions over the mingled 
profusion of unanswered correspondence 
and half-completed manuscripts on the 
desk, and the writer was off. Already 
the breath of sea air came to him as he 
crossed Battery Park, waking memories 
of dazzling tropic beaches and rocky 
high-latitude headlands north and south 
of “The Line”. A mixture of smoke and 
haze was blowing from the southwest, 
obscuring the shipping-troubled waters 
of lower Manhattan, where at the sum- 
mit of the overshadowing buildings a 
flag stood straight out, its tail whipping 
into the air. 
The Seahorse proved to be a small 
craft, with jib and 
mainsail to help 
out her engine with 
favoring wind. She 
has comfortable 
a c c o m m odations 
for the complement 
of four men which 
now made up her 
crew. Her waist 
is walled off as a 
“well”, communi- 
cating with the 
outside by rows of 
inch holes bored 
through her bot- 
tom. Every time 
she rolls water is 
forced in and out 
of the holes, keep- 
ing the water in- 
side sweet for the 
cargo of living fish 
on the trips back 
up the bay. 
Passing through 
the Narrows, we 
stood across the 
Lower Bay for 
Sandy Hook. Small 
Courfesy, American Museum of Natural History 
Lafayettes ( Leiostomus ) 
dark birds now appeared flying about 
singly just over the surface of the 
water. Now and then three or four 
were gathered into a little company, 
fluttering and dancing about something 
good to eat they had discovered, but they 
did not alight. These are Mother Carey’s 
Chickens, which come to rest so seldom 
that, according to sailors’ legend, they 
carry their eggs under their wings. 
Those Mother Carey’s Chickens found off 
New York in mid-summer are great trav- 
ellers, having come all the way from 
grounds far south of the Equator, where 
they nest in the long daylight prevailing 
there while winter rules the north. 
The point of the Hook was our objec- 
tive. Here we came to anchor and the 
seine was loaded into the stern of our 
flat-bottomed tender. Though the breeze 
was abating somewhat, going down with 
the sun, the ebb-tide, flowing against it 
made the water choppy, and the youngest 
member of the party loosened the fasten- 
ings of his sea-boots, in case there should 
be occasion for swimming on the trip to 
the beach. Close in-shore a fish-hawk 
was marking time in the air, facing the 
wind, waiting for his supper to come 
swimming by. 
For the remainder of the afternoon the 
Director of the Aquarium and his three 
assistants labored with the seine. The 
moment we had it ashore with its flop- 
ping freight, the fish had to be placed in 
containers, lifted into the tender, and it 
was row for the Seahorse and transfer 
them to her well before they perished 
from lack of oxygen. There were many 
fluke taken, the big-mouthed summer 
flounder which lies always with its left 
side uppermost. There were large Lafay- 
ettes, said to invade New York waters 
from the south every seventh year, but 
which statistics show have been present 
every few years in the past without ap- 
parent rpgard for the mystic number 
seven. And there were quantities of that 
salt-water creature known as puffer, 
swell-fish or blowfish, with hard nipper- 
like teeth suggest- 
ing the beak of a 
bird in its little 
round mouth, and 
the peculiar power 
of inflating its 
body with air until 
twice life size, and 
round as a balloon. 
All these were very 
desirable for the 
New York Aquar- 
ium to acquire just 
at this time, as 
many would be 
needed to send in 
return for a ship- 
m e n t of fresh- 
water fishes soon 
to arrive from the 
Detroit Aquarium. 
A dozen or so kinds 
of fishes came to 
light but, for the 
naturalist perhaps 
the most interest- 
ing of all was a 
little northern 
barracuda a couple 
of inches long, 
The sturdy little “Seahorse” of the New York Aquarium 
