History of Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts, including Lynnfield ...

Miscellaneous Notes. 247
more animals than there are men on the earth," we are not
prepared to dispute— certainly not from any actual enumeration ;
nor would we undertake to deny that were it not for the gormandising
propensities of the larger corsairs of the deep the
smaller would so increase that ships would be obstructed in
their movements ;
yet we are prepared to sa}' that some kinds,
once abundant hereabout have almost entirely disappeared —
salmon, shad, and bass, for instance. As to shell-fish : the clam
is yet measurably abundant, though the population is so rapidly
increasing that his admirers are already beginning to fear great
scarcity ;
sixty years ago ten or twelve cents was a fair price for
half a bushel. And as to lobsters, though large numbers are
yet every year taken, about the rocks of Nahant and Swampscott,
and out in deeper water, their haunts are so unceasingly invaded
that even their graceful forms and sunny tempers, without the
intervention of the strong arm of the law could not save them
from apprehended extinction. Our present laws, with their rather
severe penalties may succeed in affording future generations a
taste of the delicate meat.
Eels do not seem to elicit the tender sympathies of people, as
do some of their companions of the shoals ;
perhaps because
they have the misfortune to so resemble snakes. They yet bed,
in large numbers, in Saugus river and other places where soft,
muddy bottoms are found, and in winter especially furnish to their
captors many a savory meal. Tons of them were formerly taken,
every winter, in the river alone. And the grim old iron workers
had there a well-improved harvest field.
The sportive little " nippers," are much less abundant about
the rocks of Nahant, than formerly, if the testimony of the pretty
amateur fishers who so unskillfully cast their lines is to be taken
as conclusive.
But we thankfully reiterate that the yielding sea has always
proved a liberal friend to Lynn. Lynn, however, has likewise
proved a friend to herself Our people have never been given to
moroseness, or complaining.
In the outset there was no aspiraration
for things too high ;
and we have ever remained an industrious,
working people — a people not unduly prone to speculative
and haphazard enterprises. These habits, early established,
have stood us in good stead, through the mutations of all our