OF THE FISH.

§ 21. As for fish, both of fresh and salt water, of shell fish, and others, no country can boast of more variety, greater plenty, or of better in their several kinds.

In the spring of the year herrings come up in such abundance into their brooks and fords to spawn, that it is almost impossible to ride through without treading on them. Thus do those poor creatures expose their own lives to some hazard, out of their care to find a more convenient reception for their young, which are not yet alive. Thence it is that at this time of the year the freshes of the rivers, like that of the Broadruck, stink of fish.

Besides these herrings, there come up likewise into the freshes from the sea multitudes of shad, rock, sturgeon, and some few lampreys, which fasten themselves to the shad, as the remora of Imperatus is said to do to the shark of Tiburone. They continue their stay there about three months. The shads at their first coming up are fat and fleshy; but they waste so extremely in milting and spawning, that at their going down they are poor, and seem fuller of bones, only because they have less flesh. It is upon this account (I suppose) that those in the Severn, which in Gloucester they call twaits, are said at first to want those intermusculary bones, which afterwards they abound with. As these are in the freshes, so the salts afford at certain times of the year many other kinds of fish in infinite shoals, such as the old-wife, a fish not much unlike an herring, and the sheep's-head, a sort of fish, which they esteem in the number of their best.§ 22. There is likewise great plenty of other fish all the summer long; and almost in every part of the rivers and brooks, there are found of different kinds. Wherefore I shall not pretend to give a detail of them, but venture to mention the names only of such as I have eaten and seen myself, and so leave the rest to those that are better skilled in natural history. However, I may add, that besides all those that I have met with myself, I have heard of a great many very good sorts, both in the salts and freshes; and such people, too, as have not always spent their time in that country, have commended them to me beyond any they had ever eaten before.

Those which I know of myself I remember by the names of herring, rock, sturgeon, shad, old-wife, sheep's-head, black and red drum, trout, taylor, green-fish, sun-fish, bass, chub, place, flounder, whiting, fatback, maid, wife, small-turtle, crab, oyster, mussel, cockle, shrimp, needle-fish, breme, carp, pike, jack, mullet, eel, conger-eel, perch, and cat, &c.

Those which I remember to have seen there, of the kinds that are not eaten, are the whale, porpus, shark, dog-fish, garr, stingray, thornback, saw-fish, toad-fish, frog-fish, land-crab, fiddler, and periwinckle. One day as I was hauling a sein upon the salts, I caught a small fish about two inches and an half long, in shape something resembling a scorpion, but of a dirty, dark color. I was a little shy of handling it, though I believe there was no hurt in it. This I judge to be that fish which Mr. Purchase in his Pilgrims, and Captain Smith in his General History, page 125, affirm to be extremely like St. George's Dragon, except only that it wants feet and wings. Governor Spotswood has one of them dried in full shape.

§ 23. Before the arrival of the English there the Indians had fish in such vast plenty, that the boys and girls would take a pointed stick and strike the lesser sort as they swam upon the flats. The larger fish, that kept in deeper water, they were put to a little more difficulty to take. But for these they made weirs, that is, a hedge of small riv'd sticks, or reeds, of the thickness of a man's finger. These they wove together in a row, with straps of green oak, or other tough wood, so close that the small fish could not pass through. Upon high water mark they pitched one end of this hedge, and the other they extended into the river, to the depth of eight or ten feet, fastening it with stakes, making cods out from the hedge on one side almost at the end, and leaving a gap for the fish to go into them, which were contrived so that the fish could easily find their passage into those cods when they were at the gap, but not see their way out again when they were in. Thus, if they offered to pass through, they were taken.

Sometimes they made such a hedge as this quite across a creek at high water, and at low would go into the run, then contracted into a narrow stream, and take out what fish they pleased.

At the falls of the rivers, where the water is shallow, and the current strong, the Indians use another kind of weir, thus made: They make a dam of loose stone, whereof there is plenty at hand, quite across the river, leaving one, two or more spaces or tunnels for the water to pass through; at the mouth of which they set a pot of reeds, wove in form of a cone, whose base is about three feet, and perpendicular ten, into which the swiftness of the current carries the fish, and there lodges them.

The Indian way of catching sturgeon, when they came into the narrow part of the rivers, was by a man's clapping a noose over their tails, and by keeping fast his hold. Thus a fish finding itself entangled would flounce, and often pull the man under water, and then that man was counted a cockarouse, or brave fellow, that would not let go; till with swimming, wading and diving, he had tired the sturgeon, and brought it ashore. These sturgeons would also often leap into their canoes in crossing the river, as many of them do still every year into the boats of the English.They have also another way of fishing like those on the Euxine sea, by the help of a blazing fire by night. They make a hearth in the middle of their canoe, raising it within two inches of the edge; upon this they lay their burning lightwood, split into small shivers, each splinter whereof will blaze and burn, end for end, like a candle: 'Tis one man's work to attend his fire and keep it flaming. At each end of the canoe stands an Indian, with a gig or pointed spear, setting the canoe forward, with the butt end of the spear, as gently as he can, by that means stealing upon the fish without any noise, or disturbing of the water. Then they with great dexterity dart these spears into the fish, and so take them. Now there is a double convenience in the blaze of this fire, for it not only dazzles the eyes of the fish, which will lie still, glaring upon it, but likewise discovers the bottom of the river clearly to the fisherman, which the daylight does not.

The following print, I may justly affirm to be a very true representation of the Indian fishery.

Tab. I. Represents the Indians in a canoe with a fire in the middle, attended by a boy and a girl. In one end is a net made of silk grass, which they use in fishing their weirs. Above is the shape of their weirs, and the manner of setting a weir wedge across the mouth of a creek.

§ 24. 'Tis a good diversion to observe, the manner of the fishing-hawk's preying upon fish, which may be seen every fair day all the summer long, and especially in a morning. At the first coming of the fish in the spring, these birds of prey are surprisingly eager. I believe, in the dead of winter, they fish farther off at sea, or remain among the craggy uninhabited islands upon the sea coast. I have often been pleasantly entertained by seeing these hawks take the fish out of the water, and as they were flying away with their quarry, the bald eagles take it from them again. I have often observed the first of these hover over the water and rest upon the wing some minutes together, without the least change of place, and then from a vast height dart directly into the water, and there plunge down for the space of half a minute or more, and at last bring up with him a fish which he could hardly rise with; then, having got upon the wing again, he would shake himself so powerfully that he threw the water like a mist about him; afterwards away he'd fly to the woods with his game, if he were not overlooked by the bald eagle and robbed by the way, which very frequently happens. For the bald eagle no sooner perceives a hawk that has taken his prey but he immediately pursues and strives to get above him in the air, which if he can once attain, the hawk for fear of being torn by him, lets the fish drop, and so by the loss of his dinner compounds for his own safety. The poor fish is no sooner loosed from the hawk's talons, but the eagle shoots himself with wonderful swiftness after it, and catches it in the air, leaving all further pursuit of the hawk, which has no other remedy but to go and fish for another.

Walking once with a gentleman in an orchard by the river side, early in the spring, before the fish were by us perceived to appear in shoal water or near the shores, and before any had been caught by the people, we heard a great noise in the air just over our heads, and looking up we saw an eagle in close pursuit of a hawk that had a great fish in his pounces. The hawk was as low as the apple trees before he would let go his fish, thinking to recover the wood which was just by, where the eagles dare never follow, for fear of bruising themselves. But, notwithstanding the fish was dropped so low, and though it did not fall above thirty yards from us, yet we with our hollowing, running and casting up our hats, could hardly save the fish from the eagle, and if it had been let go two yards higher he would have got it: but we at last took possession of it alive, carried it home, and had it dressed forthwith. It served five of us very plentifully for a breakfast, and some to the servants. This fish was a rock near two feet long, very fat, and a great rarity for the time of year, as well as for the manner of its being taken.

These fishing hawks, in more plentiful seasons, will catch a fish and loiter about with it in the air, on purpose to have chase with an eagle; and when he does not appear soon enough the hawk will make a saucy noise, and insolently defy him. This has been frequently seen by persons who have observed their fishings.