Nothing, in the opinion of a New Yorker, can exceed boiled sheep’shead served up at a sumptuous dinner. . . This noble fish . . . the feats of hooking and pulling him in, furnish abundant materials for the most pleasing and hyperbolical stories.

The Public Domain Review examines Samuel L. Mitchill’s nearly obsessive Report, in part, On the Fishes of New York and his William-Blake-like attention to the world.