The Shad Make
Their Appearance Early In May, At The Same Time With The Blossoms
Of The Pyrus, One Of The Most Conspicuous Early Flowers, Which Is
For This Reason Called The Shad-Blossom.
An insect called the
shad-fly also appears at the same time, covering the houses and
fences.
We are told that "their greatest run is when the
apple-trees are in full blossom. The old shad return in August;
the young, three or four inches long, in September. These are
very fond of flies." A rather picturesque and luxurious mode of
fishing was formerly practised on the Connecticut, at Bellows
Falls, where a large rock divides the stream. "On the steep
sides of the island rock," says Belknap, "hang several
arm-chairs, fastened to ladders, and secured by a counterpoise,
in which fishermen sit to catch salmon and shad with dipping
nets." The remains of Indian weirs, made of large stones, are
still to be seen in the Winnipiseogee, one of the head-waters of
this river.
It cannot but affect our philosophy favorably to be reminded of
these shoals of migratory fishes, of salmon, shad, alewives,
marsh-bankers, and others, which penetrate up the innumerable
rivers of our coast in the spring, even to the interior lakes,
their scales gleaming in the sun; and again, of the fry which in
still greater numbers wend their way downward to the sea. "And
is it not pretty sport," wrote Captain John Smith, who was on
this coast as early as 1614, "to pull up twopence, sixpence, and
twelvepence, as fast as you can haul and veer a line?" - "And what
sport doth yield a more pleasing content, and less hurt or
charge, than angling with a hook, and crossing the sweet air from
isle to isle, over the silent streams of a calm sea."
On the sandy shore, opposite the Glass-house village in
Chelmsford, at the Great Bend where we landed to rest us and
gather a few wild plums, we discovered the _Campanula
rotundifolia_, a new flower to us, the harebell of the poets,
which is common to both hemispheres, growing close to the water.
Here, in the shady branches of an apple-tree on the sand, we took
our nooning, where there was not a zephyr to disturb the repose
of this glorious Sabbath day, and we reflected serenely on the
long past and successful labors of Latona.
"So silent is the cessile air,
That every cry and call,
The hills, and dales, and forest fair
Again repeats them all.
"The herds beneath some leafy trees,
Amidst the flowers they lie,
The stable ships upon the seas
Tend up their sails to dry."
As we thus rested in the shade, or rowed leisurely along, we had
recourse, from time to time, to the Gazetteer, which was our
Navigator, and from its bald natural facts extracted the pleasure
of poetry. Beaver River comes in a little lower down, draining
the meadows of Pelham, Windham, and Londonderry.
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