In a former letter I mentioned the relishes of salt fish usual at breakfast and supper in this country; they are chiefly of shad, a name given them by the first settlers, from their having some resemblance to that fish, though in fact they are very different; and indeed this is the case with almost every fish, bird, and other animal these Anglo-Americans took it into their heads to christen.  It is a great pity they did not call those peculiar to this continent by their indian names; and this should also have been the case with mountains, lakes, rivers, &c.  What man of any taste will not prefer the sonorous sounds of Susquana, Patapsico, Allegany, Raphanock, Potomack, and other indian titles, to such stupid appellations as Cape Cod, Mud Island, cat-fish, sheep’s head-fish, whip poor will, &c.?

But to return to the shad, if it must be so called; it is an excellent fish, and comes up the rivers in prodigious shoals, in the months of April and May, to spawn.  The largest nets used in this fishery are on the Delaware, where that river is from one to two miles wide.  These nets are from one hundred and fifty to three hundred yards long.  The greatest hawl ever known was upwards of nine thousand, from four to nine pounds per fish.

The revolution has not yet done away a fanatical law passed by the quakers, prohibiting the catching of these fish on a sunday; which, considering the short time they remain in the river, is highly impolitic.

There are thirteen fisheries within ten miles of Philadelphia; allowing only eight sundays in the season, and ten thousand shads lost in each of the twenty-four hours, a very moderate calculation, the aggregate loss to Philadelphia, and the adjacent country, is eighty thousand fish, weighing five pounds each, on an average.  I say loss; for the return of the fish is the same now as it was a hundred and thirty years ago, when only a few dozen were taken in the season by the Indians.

There is also a small fish which comes up the rivers with the shad; the shoals this year have been uncommonly large; upwards of ten thousand have been taken at one hawl.  Like the shad, it takes salt well; and, from it’s having some resemblance to a herring, they give it that name, though very different from the herring which visits the shores of Europe.  I believe there is no instance of a herring running a hundred and fifty miles up a fresh water river, or existing at all in water perfectly fresh.

The above particulars you may depend upon; they were communicated to me by Mr. West, who is proprietor of the largest shad-fisheries on the Delaware.

This river also abounds in cat-fish, perch, jack, eels, and a great variety of others; above all, in sturgeon; which are frequently caught by accident in the shad-nets, and either boiled for their oil, or suffered to rot on the, shores, being very seldom sent to market:  when this is the case, they are sold for a mere trifle, chiefly to emigrants.  The Americans have conceived a violent antipathy to this fish.  I recollect no instance of seeing it at their tables.  They have every externals appearance of the european sturgeon, but in other respects must be very different, or the Americans lose one of the best fisheries in the world.