Natural History of the Fishes of Massachusetts: Embracing a Practical Essay on Angling |
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abdomen alewife anal fin angler angling animals appearance bait barrels basking shark boat body bones Boston branchial brook called Cape caudal caudal fin caught circumstances coast color common dark deep dorsal fin England eyes fact feed feet in length feet long FILE FISH fish fishermen fishery fly-fishing fresh water gills head hook inches in length jaws known lake lamprey land lateral line live mackerel Massachusetts membrane menhaden mouth nature observed ocean operculum particularly pectoral fins peculiar pike pond pounds prey rays remarks resembles rivers salmon salt scales sculpin sea-trout season seen shark shoal shore side silvery skin spawn species specimens spines spots stream sturgeon surface swallow swimming swimming bladder tail taken tautog teeth tide tion tom-cod tomcodus trout varieties ventral fins vessels voracious weighing whale white shark writers
Popular passages
Page 10 - Straits, — whilst we are looking for them beneath the arctic circle, we hear that they have pierced into the opposite region of polar cold ; that they are at the antipodes, and engaged under the frozen serpent of the South. Falkland Island, which seemed too remote and romantic an object for the grasp of national ambition, is but a stage and restingplace in the progress of their victorious industry.
Page 10 - Nor is the equinoctial heat more discouraging to them than the accumulated winter of both the poles. We know that whilst some of them draw the line and strike the harpoon on the coast of Africa, others run the longitude and pursue their gigantic game along the coast of Brazil.
Page 5 - Twas an employment for his idle time, which was then not idly spent;" for Angling was, after tedious study, " a rest to his mind, a cheerer of his spirits, a diverter of sadness, a calmer of unquiet thoughts, a moderator of passions, a procurer of contentedness ;" and " that it begat habits of peace and patience in those that professed and practised it.
Page 27 - And GOD created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind : and GOD saw that it was good.
Page 385 - ... the fisher for salmon and trout with the fly employs not only machinery to assist his physical powers, but applies sagacity to conquer difficulties ; and the pleasure derived from ingenious resources and devices, as well as from active pursuit, belongs to this amusement. Then as to its philosophical tendency ; it is a pursuit of moral discipline, requiring patience, forbearance, and command of temper. As connected with natural science, it may be vaunted as demanding a knowledge of the habits...
Page 10 - Pass by the other parts, and look at the manner in which the people of New England have of late carried on the whale fishery. Whilst we follow them among the tumbling mountains of ice...
Page 385 - How delightful in the early spring, after the dull and tedious time of winter, when the frosts disappear, and the sunshine warms the earth and waters, to wander forth by some clear stream...
Page 10 - No sea but what is vexed by their fisheries. No climate that is not witness to their toils. Neither the perseverance of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dexterous and firm sagacity of English enterprise, ever carried this most perilous mode of hardy industry to the extent to which it has been pushed by this recent people ; a people who are still as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood.
Page 5 - Country men, let not the meannesse of the word fish distaste you, for it will afford as good gold as the Mines of Guiana or Potassie, with lesse hazard and charge, and more certainty and facility.
Page 384 - The search after food is an instinct belonging to our nature ; and from the savage in his rudest and most primitive state, who destroys a piece of game, or a fish, with a club or spear, to man in the most cultivated state of society, who employs artifice, machinery, and the resources of various other animals, to secure his object, the origin of the pleasure is similar, and its object the same : but that kind of it requiring most art may be said to...