Porgy, Northern Porgy, Scup, Scuppaug

The Narragansett Indians called it mishcuppauog, pauog being their name for fertilizer. This was shortened by the early settlers in New England to scuppaug; and afterwards to scup, a better name than porgy.

Various nineteenth-century reports record an amazing abundance of scup in New England waters. Goode quotes a description by Professor Baird (an ichthyologist with a military background?) of how the advance-guard of scup would descend on the New England coast in May, followed successively by other detachments. ‘The western division of this arm appears to strike first at Watch Hill, to the west of Point Judith, and to make its way slowly along eastward, the smaller or eastern division moving through Vineyard Sound.’ Their abundance was so great that any number of fishermen ‘could take five hundred to one thousand pounds a day without the slightest difficulty’. Moreover, they could be outmanoeuvred by one man and his dog. A Mr Dunham of Nantucket, out in his boat, would sometimes throw a stone overboard so as to give the scup a start toward the shore; ‘and then following and throwing his dog overboard, he has driven the fish clear out of the water upon the beach and has taken as many as five hundred in this way at one time.’