196 
THE 3HEEPSHEAD. 
price than any, excepting, perhaps, fresh salmon and trout. 
The price varies from a dollar to one hundred and fifty cents, 
for a fish of middle size; that is, from four to seven pounds. 
Nothing, in the opinion of a New-Yorker, can exceed boiled 
sheepshead, served up at a sumptuous dinner. 
“ General color of the sheepshead a white or obscure sil- 
very, with a smutty daubing over the face and chin, and a 
greenish tinge above the brow, and six or seven dark bands 
or zones of an inch or more in breadth, regularly slanting 
from back to belly : the latter a dull white, approaching, in 
some places and individuals, to cream color. Scales large, 
horny, distinguished by radiated and concentric lines, and 
somewhat like a square rounded at the comers. They are 
deeply inserted into the skin; adhere with remarkable firm- 
ness ; and when they are separated, there is discoverable, on 
the edges of the skin that enclosed them, a sort of tarnished 
argentine or brightish leaden hue. Rays of all the fins coarse. 
« This noble fish visits the neighborhood of Long Island 
annually. Emerging from the depths of the ocean, he finds 
in the recesses and inlets there, a plenty of the crabs, muscles, 
and clams, on which he loves to feed. He confines himself 
strictly to the salt water, never having been seen in the fresh 
rivers. His term of continuance is only during the warmest 
season; that is, from the beginning of June to the middle of 
September. He then departs to the unknown depths of the 
Atlantic, and is seen no more until the ensuing summer. I 
have, however, known him to stay later ; for one of the most 
numerous collections of sheepshead I ever saw in New- York 
market, was on the 4th of October, 1814. I have seen him 
as late as the 17th. 
« The sheepshead swims in shoals, and la sometimes sur- 
rounded in great numbers by tho seine. Several hundred 
have often been taken at a single haul, with the long sweep- 
ing nets in U6e near Raynortown, Babylon, and Fire Island. 
I 
