In their voyage of discovery in the Chesapeake Captain John Smith and his companions found schools of fish agitating the surface of the water. The written accounts of these men state that the fish were so thick that they attempted to dip them up in a frying-pan but it proved to be "not a good instrument to catch fish with." These fish are believed to have been menhaden, known to naturalists as brevoortia. This ordinary looking fish was destined to change the course of history in the lower Northern Neck. The Indian names for this species, munnawhatteaug (corrupted to menhaden), and pauhagen (pogy), literally means fertilizer--"fish that enriches the earth." The Indians were accustomed to employ this species, with others of the herring tribe, in enriching their cornfields. They showed the white men how to make their corn grow by putting two dead fish in each hill of corn. The following passage written by Thomas Morton in 1632 shows the use of fish as fertilizer in Virginia at that time: "There is a fish at the spring of the yeare that passe up the rivers to spawn in the ponds, & are taken in such multitudes that the inhabitants fertilize their grounds with them." The menhaden was called alewife by the Virginia colonists because of its resemblance to the allied species known by that name in England. Alewife was corrupted to old-wife and ell-wife. It has been said that the half-grown menhaden were called bug-fish by Virginia negroes in early days because they believed them to have been produced from insects. This superstition probably arose from the fact that a parasitic crustacean, known to watermen as "a fish louse," was often found clinging to the roof of the menhaden's mouth. The menhaden had many other popular names, among them: porgie, bony-fish, poggie, mossbunker, greentail, bunker, yellowtail, white-fish, fat back, and another Indian name, chebog. "Mossbunker" is a relic of the Dutch Colony at New Amsterdam. It was in use there as early as 1661, probably a corruption of their Dutch word, _marsbancker_. It is said that the Indians did not like to eat menhaden because of their oily content. Many years later it was learned that this fish was also rich in minerals. Early settlers ate them, salted them for winter use, and fed them to the stock. Catesby wrote, 1731-1742, concerning a fish called a "Fatback: It is an excellent Sweet Fish, and so excessive fat that Butter is never used in frying. At certain Seasons and Places there are infinite Numbers of these Fish caught, and are much esteemed by the Inhabitants for their Delicacy." Menhaden were used to some extent as a food by watermen for many years but it does not appear probable that they were ever extensively used for food except in seasons of scarcity. They were used for many years to feed stock.