A Summer Cruise on the Coast of New England

Front matter

A SUMMER CRUISE ON THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. By ROBERT CARTER. " They are becalmed in clearest days, And in rough weather tost j They wither under cold delays, Or are in tempests lost. One while they seem to touch the port. Then straight into the main. Some angry wind, in cruel sport. The vessel drives again Sir Charles Sedlev. " How sweet it was Eating the lotos day by day, To watch the crisping ripples on the beach, And tender curving lines of creamy spray." Tennysow. BOSTON: CROSBY AND NICHOLS NEW YORK : OLIVER S. FELT. 1864. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by CROSBY AND NICHOLS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for tbe District of Massachusetts. University Press: Welch, Bigelow, and Company, Cambridge.

Preface

The fishing voyage of which this book is a record was made in 1858, during my summer vacation from the arduous duties of a Washington Correspondent of the New York Tribune, aud the narrative originally appeared in the form of letters to that journal. In that shape it met with considerable favor, especially from sportsmen and naturalists ; and its publication in a permanent form, at this late day, is due, in part, to the assurances I have received from high scientific authority tliat its sketches of the fishes of our Northern seas, of their habits and resorts, and of the methods of taking them, are not without value as contributions to Natural History. I can only say upon this point, that I have spared no pains to make my statements accurate, not only by careful personal observa tions, but by freely consulting and using the writings of our best American ichthyologists. R. C. CONTENTS.

Chapter I. The Plan Of The Cruise

On one of the hottest evenings of the hot month of June, 1858, I paid a visit to my friend Professor , at his residence on G. Street, Washington. I do not know that my friend had any regular or official claim to the title of Professor. It was conferred upon him, like so many of our Ameri can titles, as a matter of conversational conven ience by the officers of the North Pacific Exploring Expedition, of which he was Naturalist. They dubbed him Professor of Marine Zoology, in rec ognition of his skill in the knowledge of all that pertains to the creatures that inhabit the great deep, but especially of the mollusks, Crustacea, and invertebrates generally, — a knowledge abundantly shown in his various treatises on the marine zoology, not only of New England, but of the Chinese and Japanese seas.

The study of the 1 a ocean and its inhabitants had heen a passion with him from early boyhood, and was pursued with such success, that, in 1849, while yet a youth, he had discovered the principle of the aquarium, and had a numher of aquariums in successful opera tion long before anything was heard of the kin dred experiments of the Englishman Warrington. It was a fearfully hot night; one of a long succession of hot nights and days through which I had patiently sweltered and sweated, in the vain expectation that time and endurance would gradu ally accustom me to being broiled and parboiled, as they are said to render eels tolerant of, if not acquiescent in, the process of being skinned alive. But a frame acclimated to the moderate heats and invariably cool nights of the sea-coast of Massachusetts, could not readily become insensi ble to the influence of an atmosphere which at midnight, as well as at noonday, maintained a heat greater than the average heat of the torrid zone.

I sought refuge at the Professor's, because his house, though not materially cooler than the rest of the city, was intellectually and imaginatively cooler. It abounded in objects suggestive of re freshing ideas. There were crabs and shells that had been dragged from the sunless depths of the Arctic Ocean ; fishing-lines and dredges that had explored the cool abysses of Kamtchatkan and Siberian seas ; drawings of icebergs and glaciers ; and, what particularly was wont to give an aoreeahie chill to my fancy, a picture of the prodigious snowy cone of the great Japanese volcano, Fusi- Yama, made by a native artist at Simoda, where the Professor himself purchased it. The Professor, with nothing on but a shirt and the thinnest of pantaloons, was stretched on a sofa, with a cigar in his mouth, languidly smoking, and contemplating through his gold spectacles the ungainly proportions of a monstrous dor-bug he had just captured.

Our conversation opened, of course, on the weather. " I cannot stand it any longer," he said ; " I shall start on a cruise on the coast of Maine next week, and you had better come along, if you do not want to die of a fever. You look horribly bilious already, and a few days more of this heat will use you up entirely. Let us go and cool off at Grand Manan. I spent two months there some summers ago, fishing and dredging, and can assure you that it is the finest place on our whole coast." " For crabs, I suppose, Professor. All places are classified by you for good or bad with relation to their production or non-production of crabs." "For crabs, yes, — but not alone for crabs. The scenery is superb, — grander than anything you will see this side of the Saguenay. Huge, rocky cliffs, a thousand feet high, rise right out cf deep water, and are broken into the wildest and most romantic caves and inlets.

They are the haunt of nearly all kinds of sea-birds, from the herring-gull down to Mother Carey's chickens. We shall catch there and on our way down the coast every species of fish that swims in our seas." . > " Including the whale ? " " The whale is not a fish," responded the Pro fessor, gravely, overlooking the levity of my inter ruption in his scientific sense of its zoological inaccuracy, " hut I promise you we shall see whales in abundance. We shall also catch sharks, and kill seals and porpoises. But, in short, if you will come along, we will run into every harbor froni Provincetown to Eastport, and fish and dredge till you have seen at least one specimen of every creature that swims the sea or dwells on the bottom. Then, if you wdl, you can write a book about the aquarium which shall be a little more reliable than that trumpery thing of Ed wards's which you sent me yesterday."

"What is the matter with that?" I asked. " It seemed to me a clever and entertaining book." The Professor launched into an elaborate and energetic criticism, the details of which I cannot now recall, and to which I must confess I paid little attention, for the amount of it seemed to be that Mr. Edwards had transferred a few species of mollusks from the English seas to ours, and was not very careful in the spelling of his scientific names. I intimated that the orthography of these un couth appellations was of little consequence. The Professor shook his head. The young men and maidens who were going with such enthusiasm into the formation of aquariums would be led into a shocking confusion of names and species. Besides, some of the plates were wrong. " On plate No. 5, for example, a species of Lymnea is figured as Physa heterostropha, and on — " " That will do.

I give up Edwards, on condi tion that you do not utter another of those jaw breakers during the entire evening. But how shall we go to the Grand Manan ? " The Professor's hint about my bilious appearance had privately decided me to take an abrupt leave of the national capital. I already felt a fever in my veins. " I have written to my friend Tufts, the aqua rium maker and stocker at Swampscott, — you have heard me speak of him ? — to engage me a good, clean, stout fishing-smack of from ten to twenty tons, and also two experienced boatmen, one of them, if possible, old Captain Widger, who went with me on my cruise last year. I shall hear from Tufts in a day or two, and you had better get ready at once, for I shall be off like a flash the moment I can get away." In reply to my inquiries into the nature and extent of the requisite preparations for a cruise of a month's duration, the Professor said : — " Put two pairs of pantaloons, two thick coats, and a vest or two, the oldest and worst you have, into a bag, — a gunny-bag or a potato-sack will do.

Put in, also, a couple of flannel shirts and drawers, and half a dozen or a dozen of thick woollen socks, and an old felt hat. Buy a couple of the thickest red-flannel shirts you can find, a pair of thick-soled cowhide boots, a tight-fitting cloth cap, a cheap straw hat, and a pair of oilskin or India-rubber pantaloons, — oilskin is best, for it does n't smell so abominably as India-rubber. Put these, with two or three pairs of old slippers, in the bag, and tie it up tight. Put a couple of linen shirts, more or less, as you please, and a decent suit of light summer clothes, in a valise, so that you can go ashore at Salem, Portland, Eastport, and other civilized places, and see your friends if you have any. That is all the outfit you will need. I will look out for supplying the vessel with provisions and table-ware.

I will also provide pens, ink, paper, pencils, and envelopes. If you want to take notes, put in your valise two or three blank-books, — loose sheets of paper are always getting lost." " And the damage ? " The Professor has an abhorrence of slanophrases, except those which he uses himself. " I suppose you mean the expense," he replied. " I cannot exactly tell till I hear from Tufts what sort of craft he has engaged, and on what terms ; but if we get one or two others to go and share expenses, the ' damage,' as you call it, wdl be from $ 50 to $ 100 apiece." This was satisfactory, and I made my preparations accordingly. I put nothing in the bag be yond what the Professor indicated, except a. pair of India-rubber overshoes, which I subsequently found of essential service when the deck was too wet for slippers, as was frequently the case.

Two or three days later the Professor came to see me in high glee, intense delight gleaming through the perspiration that rolled down his face from the heat of a walk in the sunshine. He flourished an open letter in his hand. " Tufts writes that he has engaged the sloop Helen and her owner, Captain Gurney, and that Captain Widger will go if we want him. The sloop was built for a yacht, is stout and tight and roomy, with four berths. She measures seventeen tons, and draws five and a half feet of water ; has not been much used for fishing, and is consequently clean and in good condition." " The price ? " I suggested. " Seven dollars and a half a day, including the two men. I shall write to have her brought to Boston on Friday next, and we will start the next day."

Chapter II From Boston To Swampscott

— A DEVIL'S-APRON AND ITS CONTENTS. I was in Boston on the day indicated, Saturday, July 3, and after making purchase of an outfit in nearly literal compliance with the Professor's ad vice, I found myself at five o'clock in the afternoon on board the sloop, which was moored on the north side of Long Wharf. I do not know that I can write a better descrip tion of the vessel than that given in her fishing license, wliich, duly signed and countersigned by the Collector and Surveyor of the Port of Lynn, was kept on board in a tin case. It read thus : — " District of Marblehead : In pursuance of an act of Congress entitled ' An Act for enrolling and licensing ships or vessels to be employed in the coasting trade and fisheries, and for regulating the same,' John Gor ham and William G. Gurney, fishermen of Swampscott, in the State of Massachusetts, having given bond that the sloop called the Helen, whereof the said Gurney is master, — burden 16 92-95 tons, as appears by the cer tificate of admeasurement, dated at Marblehead, the 22d day of May, 1856, by which certificate it appears that her length is 32 feet and 7 inches ; breadth, 12 feet and 5 inches ; depth, 5 feet and 2 inches ; square stern and billet heads, — shall not be employed in any trade, while this license shall continue in force, whereby the revenue of the United States sliall be defrauded, and having also sworn that this license shall not be used for any other vessel or for any other employment than is here in specified, license is hereby granted for the said sloop, called the Helen of Swampscott, to be employed in carrying on the cod-fishery for one year from the date hereof, and no longer. — May 7, 1858."

The Professor was on board, in a state of keen impatience, accompanied by his friend Tufts, the aquarium stocker of Swampscott, to which port we had decided first to direct our course, to make certain necessary arrangements. The fasts were cast off as soon as I touched her deck, and in a few minutes she was going with wind and tide down Boston Harbor, accompanied by a crowd of other craft, of all classes and dimensions, including two or three steamers bound for Baltimore and Philadelphia. We had gone but five or six miles when the breeze died away and we threw over a cod-line, baited with a clam, in hope of catching something for supper. But we pulled up only a sea-weed, consisting of a long, cylindrical, hollow stem, gradually expanding into a leaf some ten inches in breadth. This plant is the Laminaria saccha rina, and is called by our fishermen and sailors the " Devil's- Apron."

On the coasts of England, its vulgar name is " Oarweed," a term exactly l * descriptive of its shape, which is that of an oar or paddle. Clinging to the roots of this weed was a horse-muscle, as large as a man's hand, which, to gether with small pebbles, had served as an anchor to keep it at the bottom. The Professor grasped with avidity the roots of the weed. After looking at it attentively a few minutes, he pointed out to me about a dozen snake-armed starfish scolopendricd) , wound around the tendrils of the roots. " This species," he said, " is found only in deep water, and can only be got by dredging. It con sists, you will observe, of a small central disk of about the size of a ten-cent piece, and five long, slender, spiny arms, which twine like serpents among the roots of the sea-weed.

They are often very brilliant, and beautifully variegated in color. Most commonly the disk is red, with a pentagonal white spot in the middle, while the arms are ringed with red and brown." The Professor next pointed out upon the drip ping mass something that looked like a large drop of blood. This, he said, was an ascidian, the Cyn thia gutta. It was a small, flat, leathery disk of a red color, of little thickness, but still sufficient to hold a variety of organs, gills, liver, stomach, intestines, &c, which may be seen upon upturn ing the envelope of the sac. On the upper sur face there are two apertures, one for the admission, the other for the expulsion of the water which passes over the gills. We found also another ascidian, Cynthia echi nata, a sort of ball, half an inch in diameter, of similar structure with the other, except that it is globular in shape and covered with radiating tufts of filaments.

These ascidians depend for food on what the water floats into their mouths. They pass their old age in a quiet, sedentary way, attached to sea-plants, from whicli they never separate except by force. In youth, on the contrary, while in the tadpole state, they are continually swimming about till they find a place in whicli to fix their permanent abode, when the tail of the tadpole disappears and the creature assumes its proper form and leads its proper life. While I was looking at the ascidians, the Pro fessor exclaimed, " Here 's a gasteropod mollusk." This was a limpet with a broad shell, in shape like a depressed cone, and not spirally twisted like most other univalves. It creeps about on the bottom with its oval, flat foot, and when disturbed can adhere so strongly to the rock, upon the same principle that a boy's round leather sucker clings to a stone or a brick, that its de struction is the certain consequence of an attempt to remove it.

The specimen we caught, Tec tura testudinalis, was very pretty, heing externally brown, with whitish rays, and internally blue, with a brown margin. This species is also found on rocks near low-water mark. "What do you think that is?" said the Pro fessor, handing me a pebble which he detached from the roots of the sea-weed. I looked at it carefully, and replied, " A pebble curiously coated with lime." " What you take for lime is a vegetable, the nullipore, much of whose fabric, however, is really composed of carbonate of lime." We found about twenty species of marine animals, and several marine plants besides, on this one piece of sea-weed, accidentally pulled from the bottom by a fish-line. It was thrown over hoard, after we had sufficiently examined it, and, as we floated slowly toward the Outer Light of Boston Bay, Mr. Tufts, sitting watchful on the vessel's side, grasped with a boathook a piece of eel-grass floating by.

" Give me that," said the Professor; "it shows fructification, and is the first specimen I have ever seen. It is very rarely found in this condition." The prize, which he put for preservation in a jar of alcohol, was a piece of common eel-grass, Zostera marina. The seeds are arranged obliquely in two rows, for a short distance, on one side of tlie long linear leaf. They are in shape like grains of rice, but much smaller. They may often be seen, thrown up on the beaches, just sprouting, but are very seldom found in situ on the leaf, so that most sea-side observers are ignorant of this plant's mode of fructification. The wind was so light that at 8 P. M. we were only ten miles from Boston, off Nahant. A thick fog coming in from the ocean shut out everything from view. We stood on, however, through a heavy rolling sea, which our Pilot, as we called Captain Widger, said was caused by the fog, though he could not tell why.

The Nahant steamboat, the Nelly Baker, was also caught in the fog, and was blowing a horn at intervals of three or four minutes, and was answered by a horn on shore to direct her to the landing-place. Pres ently we heard the breakers on Nahant Point, and hauling up to the northward, we soon saw the red light on Egg Rock feebly glimmering through the gloom before us at no great distance. We slowly passed close to the rock, of whose light we lost sight when we were about an eighth of a mile from it, so dense was the fog ; and soon after 9 P. M., the wind ceasing entirely, we came to anchor in the bay of Swampscott, about a mile from the shore, in six fathoms water. We could see nothing and hear nothing but the roar of the breakers on Egg Rock and the rocky headland near the Ocean House. The sloop lay in the trough of the sea, which the Professor de fined as the trough out of which the sea-horses took their food.

That gentleman, in spite of the seasoning of his four years' voyage round the world, and of many other cruises, began to feel internal qualms as the vessel pitched about, and presently turned in, protesting that, in all his voyagings he had never experienced a more de testable specimen ofthe "doldrums" than that in which we now lay. I, too, for the first time in my life, felt slightly sea-sick, and also turned in, after turning myself inside out over the vessel's side. The sloop's cabin, winch was low, but sufficiently broad, contained four berths, two on each side. The Professor and myself took one side, the two seamen turned in on the other, whde Mr. Tufts kept watch on deck, as there was some reason to apprehend that the sloop might drift, the only anchor we had ready for use being a small one.

At midnight he was relieved by the Skipper, and with the first dawn of morning the anchor was raised, and with a light breeze the sloop slowly moved in to her moorings near the shore of Swampscott, — said moorings consisting of a chain fastened to a rock weighing two or three tons, which, years ago, had been brought off from the beach and dropped to the bottom of the bay, its position being indicated on the surface by a cask attached to a stout rope, which cask was hauled aboard and made fast on deck when the sloop reached her moorings. There are fifty or sixty fishing sloops and schooners belonging to Swampscott, each of which has her own moorings indicated by a cask or some sort of buoy, fastened generally to two old, large ship's anchors.

Chapter III. The Cunner

— THE SCULPIN— A SCIENTIFIC SHOEMAKER. The Fourth of July morning opened with un wonted stillness. Nothing could be heard in the fog hut the light washing of the waves against the sides of the sloop, and the low roar of the surf breaking on Nahant and the rocky shore of the mainland. About six o'clock the Pilot arranged an iron furnace on deck, just in front of the cabin 'door, in the cockpit as it is called, and began preparations for breakfast. His first preparation, which, throughout the cruise, he never neglected, was slowly to fill and fight a short black pipe, with whicli stuck in his mouth, he went about the more direct duties of getting ready the meal, such as cutting up kindlings and bringing forth charcoal from the dim recesses of the forepeak. Presently he intimated that we had better have some fish for breakfast, and producing a line from a locker well stored with fishing-tackle, directed me to bait with clams, of which we had a pailful on board.

I reminded him that it was the Sab bath. He replied, with due gravity, that fishing for food on the Sabbath was perfectly lawful. He would not fish for gain or for sport on that day, but if we wanted fish for breakfast we might take them with a clear conscience. Perceiving this to be orthodox doctrine, I baited and dropped a line over the side, letting it go to the bottom. In a quarter of an hour I had caught a dozen cunners, — enough for breakfast. They are a species of perch, the sea-perch, but the fishermen of this region seldom call them perch, terming them indifferently cunners or nippers. Our Skip per and the Pilot generally gave them the latter name, whicli is obviously derived from their nip ping bite. In New York the cunner is called the "bergall," a Dutch name, and is known also by its?

Indian name " chogset." Mr. Perley of St. John, whose " Report on the Sea and River Fisheries of New Brunswick," printed at Freder ickton in 1852, is the best work yet published on American fish and fisheries, says that at Boston it is called " blue perch." But I have never heard that name given to it in Massachusetts, where it is universally known along the shore. The dozen that I caught that morning varied greatly in size and color. They were from five to ten inches in length, and in color no two were exactly alike. The general color was black mixed with brown, with faint transverse bars of an un certain dusky hue. One or two of the largest exhibited a light orange tint throughout the whole body, with the head and gill-covers of a chocolate color mixed with light blue, and with blue fins ; on the back is a long stiff fin with eighteen spines, which is erected or laid back at the will of the fish.

Later in the cruise I caught specimens of the cunner thirteen inches in length, weighing a pound, so black as to be hardly distinguishable at first glance from the tautog or black fish, while others, equally large, were throughout of a vivid light yellow, varied with spots and bars of shades of the same color. The cunner is found all along the Atlantic coast of North America, from Delaware Bay to New foundland. They are caught most plentifully near rocky shores, and are supposed to feed chiefly on Crustacea ; other fish do not molest them, from dread of their dangerous spines. They are very annoying to the fisher for tautog or rock-cod, as they swarm plentifully and take off with great readiness the bait intended for larger prey. It is, however, an excellent and favorite pan fish, and there are two or three old fishermen at Swamp scott who devote themselves entirely to catching cunners in the cunner season, that is, from the middle of June to the middle of September.

Vast numbers are caught in scoop-nets, which are lowered from boats into the still waters, where they gather in shoals so thick that sometimes a bushel is drawn into the boat at once. They are prepared for the table by stripping the skin off entirely, leaving the flesh white and delicate. I B found them very good eating, not inferior to tau tog, when both are cooked in the same manner. Beside the cunners, I caught a cod weighing a pound and a half, which went with them into the frying-pan. The Professor, despising cunner-fishing, was engaged in catching medusæ with a hand net, as they floated past the sloop ; but, on seeing the cod, he dropped his net, baited a large hook heavily with clams, and flung it overboard. In a moment he had a bite, and, pulling vigorously, drew up a large sculpin, or " grubby," as the Skipper called it, — toad-fish, it is called in New York.

For the benefit of my inland readers, I will try to describe this monster, who, if his size were commensurate with his ugliness, would be the most frightful of created things. The speci men we caught was about twelve inches long, with a big, thick head, an immense mouth, great staring goggle eyes, with black pupils and golden irides, fins and tail variously and brightly colored, and with about fifty spines and tubercles scattered over him, chiefly on his head. The upper part of his body was of a light-brown color, with dark, irregular blotches ; his throat and belly pure white, his first back fin of a dark-brown color, banded with yellow ; the second back fin of a greenish yellow, with three transverse black bands ; the fins on the sides of a dirty white streaked with black ; the tail yellow, with three transverse black bars.

The sculpin is a lazy rascal, and spends his time chiefly in lying on the bottom, with his fins spread, waiting till food is brought within his reach. He eats everything that is edible, and will therefore bite at any bait. He is very easily caught, and comes to the surface unresistingly, ex hibiting, when there, a ridiculously piteous aspect, gasping with his great mouth and staring with his goggle eyes. He is generally put to death, or badly hurt, before being flung back into the water, in order to keep him from biting again at the hook. On this occasion the Professor sought to induce the Pilot to cook the creature and try its edible qualities, assuring him that he would find it not bad eating. The Pilot was deaf to the suggestion, and, after knocking the sculpin's head two or three times against the side of the vessel, threw it overboard.

I believe the Greenlanders are the only people who make the sculpin an arti cle of diet, though I have heard that the negroes of Boston are accustomed to eat those they catch from the wharves and bridges, and that they pro nounce them very good. They are said to make especially good soup. Mr. Perley remarks that when the line fishers in the Bay of Fundy find the sculpin biting too freely they immediately change their ground to avoid it. Our breakfast was of fried fish, boiled eggs, "hard tack," — as the sailors term crackers and biscuit, in distinction from loaf bread, which they call "soft tack," — and coffee, which we drank from large yellow mugs. After breakfast, about nine o'clock, the fog "rose up in many a spectral shape And crept away in silence o'er the waves. The sea, from silvery white to deepest blue, Changed 'neath the changing colors of the sky ; The distant lighthouse broke upon the view And the long land-points spread before the eye."