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 occupants wielding the long, ungainly rakes with which their spoil was detached from the river-bed and brought aboard; but that spectacle is growing 3^early less familiar.

The giant of the upper ri\^er for many years was the sturgeon, a monster of uncouth appearance, whose

440 The Hudson River

coarse flesh, if properly cooked, is not unpalatable. This fish is not extinct, though not nearly as plentiful as formerl}', when its consumption at the vState capital ga\-e it the popular name of Albany beef. The sturgeon attains a length of five or six and (exce]jtionallv) 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, immortalised by Drake in TJic Culprit Fay, was a frequent sight a generation ago, and it was worth a day's journey to see that quivering bulk ])ierce the surface, a living projectile, and, descril)ing a parabola of eight or ten feet, fling a rainbow arch of spra)^ into the sunlight.