build- ing of the Troy dam put a stop to that industry. The statistics for a recent year, published by the State Fish Commissioners, show that in three thousand five hundred nets over a million shad were caught. During the two months or less that the shad season lasts the fishing stations are scenes of picturesque ac- tivity, retaining, perhaps, more suggestion of the old distinctive river life than anything else that we can witness to-day. The toiling groups of roughly clad rivermen, handling and shipping the fish, the midget fieets of clustering boats, and the endless labour of spreading, drying, and repairing the nets, are details of a quaint and fascinating picture. The greatest number of nets operated are at Alpine and Fort Lee on the Jersey shore, and at Nyack and Ossining in New York. The striped bass, while caught for market, is more of a fish for sportsmen,, for he takes only live bait and makes a fight that will cause an angler's blood to leap. This fish is to be found as far as the brackish water runs. In the lower part of the river for many years the prac- tice of fishing for bass in the spring fell into disuse. Only when the water began to be cold in the autumn Digitized by Microsoft® Sports and Industries 439 did Piscator, equipped with rod and reel and store of shrimp or "shedder," seek some fortunate spot, by bearings which may have been transmitted from an earUer generation, there to make long casts and in- dulge in large anticipations. But a few years ago some one recollected that in the old days the best time to fish for bass was in the spring. Two or three fish of phenomenal size rewarded the anglers who were hardy enough to brave public opinion, and from that day the striped bass has had a troubled life. Long ago the Indians found the bays and shallows of the river prolific breeding-grounds for oysters, and some of the tribes are said to have used the bivalves as one of their chief means of sustenance. Their frequent shell heaps, some of them not yet obliterated, bear witness to the favour in which this epicurean morsel was held by the aborigines. During the early years of New York's history, the poorer people depended largely upon the plentiful oyster supply as one of the cheapest varieties of food they could obtain, but now the supply is at best meagre and the oyster industry decadent. Within comparatively recent times it was a common sight to see little fleets of boats, their occu- pants wielding the long, ungainly rakes with which their spoil was detached from the river-bed and brought aboard; but that spectacle is growing yearly less familiar. The giant of the upper river for many years was the sturgeon, a monster of uncouth appearance, whose Digitized by Microsoft® 440 The Hudson River coarse flesh, if properly cooked, is not unpalatable. This fish is not extinct, though not nearly as plentiful as formerly, when its consumption at the State capital gave it the popular name of Albany beef. The stur- geon attains a length of five or six and (exceptionally) eight feet, while the weight of a single specimen is said sometimes to exceed four hundred and fifty pounds. When sturgeon were more plentiful than now, they were caught for the oil, that has been esteemed equal to the best sperm. The leap of the sturgeon, immor- talised by Drake in The Culprit Fay, was a frequent sight a generation ago, and it was worth a day's jour- ney to see that quivering bulk pierce the surface, a living projectile, and, describing a parabola of eight or ten feet, fling a rainbow arch of spray into the sunlight. The herring have also frequented the waters of the Hudson at intervals, and perch, white-fish, snappers (young bluefish), and a multitude of the smaller fry, are familiar to every American boy who is in training for the Presidency. Within the past fifteen years the Fish Gorrunissioners have put thousands of salmon and otMr fry in the river, and occasionally fine specimens of varieties thus introduced have been taken, while it is expected that the future will more than justify the outlay, but in general it is acknowledged that this great volume of water flowing seaward with slow gradations from the freshness of a mountain stream to the saltness of the Digitized by Microsoft® Sports and Industries 441 ocean is no longer a fisherman's river. One can hardly believe that the schools of fish have been de- pleted by the industry of the fishermen. By the ordinary process of multiplication, if unchecked by other untoward influences, the supply of fish in such a river must always be in excess